Let me get this straight

[singularity75]

I've never been impressed with the idea of banning teachers from being able to strike. But the new proposals are to ban teacher strikes, lock outs by the school boards and ban work to rule campaigns. Ban work to rule campaigns?! What the hell? How can you do that when the teacher is essentially doing what they were hired to do and nothing else. You are going to ban that so that they have to do all the other extras that they do for free? How can teachers protest something going on against them? There will be absolutely no mechanism to allow for disagreement. It will essentially mean teachers have no way to voice discontent and have to take whatever the government wants to do. Government wants to cut teachers pay by 25% for some reason? Well, what can teachers do about it? They can't strike, they can't work to rule, what do they do? They have to take the cuts. Let me ask you this, how would you feel about this?

This provincial government has long said it wasn't anti-teachers, but that's clearly not the case. They also claim to want to attract the best teachers to work here. Their actions say otherwise. After all, who really wants to work in an environment like that? An environment where you get no respect from the government, school boards and in many cases, parents. All you get is told how bad you are over and over again. There's a reason why people leave the profession so much. I can say this, if this actually comes to pass instead of being an idea, I had better have my dream job somewhere nearby by August of next year or I will probably leave. The environment here is very hostile and it just won't be worth it.

Comments

[theducks.livejournal.com]

Ugh, stupid politicians. Canada already has enough of a rep about being like soviet russia without the gulags and political killings.. banning strikes is NOT a good thing :/

But I'm preaching to the converted of course ;)

[lonejaguar.livejournal.com]

Yeah I don't get it... they're essentially taking the teacher's power away completely. Who cares if they strike over the summer, right? They're not really affecting anyone, so what's the hurry to work out a deal?

I hate that Ernie Eves, seriously... his voice freaks me right out.

[thesunshine.livejournal.com]

his voice is creepy

[singularity.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Striking in the summer is useless. The worst it would do would be to disrupt summer school, unless they make no striking during summer school, which means teachers can only strike in August. That'll work real well, especially since most boards of ed are closed for half of August. And to do all of this, the government would have to start defining all the teachers duties that teachers now do normally without a contract saying to do it (this would stop the work to rule strikes).

I absolutely hate Harris, and Eves has always been a severe annoyance, but now he's on my hate list. His party is losing in the polls badly, and wants to try to do anything to get votes. So this is done to try and get parents on his side to stop all the strikes that started a few years ago...which the PC party was responsible for starting in the first place!!

[kudzita.livejournal.com]

Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
Yeah, the big reason I decided to go for a PhD and college work instead of public schools with a bachelor's was just that the government SCREWS TEACHERS OVER muchly. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck...I can go on about this for hours so I'll shaddup now.

[singularity.livejournal.com]

Hehe, but I like hearing those kind of rants, so please, go ahead if you like ;)

Re:

[kudzita.livejournal.com]

Heh except the problem is my rants tend more towards incoherent grumblings than intelligent discourse :P
But my main problem might actually lie more in American society than government actually, or at least conservative society. :P All the right-wing pundits, when they need a break from bashing, you know, teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs or whatever, go on their huge "teachers are overpaid and underworked" schtick, it's SO annoying.
Oh actually there's a great Tom Tomorrow cartoon about that, let me see if I can find it...ah here!
Yeah, the article the cartoon was based on is findable too, but frankly I'm not sadistic enough to point you to a David Horowitz article when you're already in a bad mood, hehe.

[singularity.livejournal.com]

Hehe You? Incoherent? hehe.
I agree with you on that. Way too many people go along with the idea of teachers being overpaid and underworked. One of the biggest problems in that thinking is that they only use the teachers at the extreme top of the pay scale. Very few make it that high since it requires several university degrees, including graduate ones and/or being a principal which few want to do. There's a 20k difference between these people and the others in top pay. If you hear that the top pay a college professor made was over $500k, do you think all professors make over that much? Of course not, but why do so many think that of teachers?
When people talk about the holidays teachers get, it's also annoying for many reasons. One is mentioned in that comic. But there are others. I'd love for those who think teachers are underworked to work as a teacher for even a year and try to do all the things they think teachers can do.
That cartoon was great, thanks!
You might as well pass the article on if you do find it. I'm not as upset over it all now like I was earlier when I first read about it. Although my recent post about other changes is not overly helpful to my mood. Good thing I read about them a number of hours ago while at work. heh