Anybody tired of the Teacher's Strikes?

Mad Mike

Mad Mike

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I have no kids in school so the current union shenanigans are not directly impacting me. I am growing increasingly tired of the whining, media coverage, and the 'save the children' message used to camouflage greed.

Do we even need unions anymore?
 
Although it's complicated, to put it simply, I think the vast majority of teachers are overpaid, some need the boot and ECE's should have a dramatic salary increase as they are doing a very similar role for 25% of the money.

Almost all unions in canada at this point are a pox on society (and surprise, surprise, most are focused on the public sector as that is the only place that can afford their BS).
 
I think the reality is, we make them take care of an important aspect of our kids' lives for most of the day while we're making our money. You put in the mix special needs kids in their classes (which they may or may not have an ECE/TA for) while still needing to get through the curriculum for all the other kids, collocated grades (ie. grade 3 and grade 4 put in one general room with 2 teachers, 45+ kids) and i'd like to see how many people want to take that job for lower salaries. Fact of the matter is, kids can't be disciplined anymore, the parents work for their kids instead of working with the teacher as their kid has to be special. On top of that all the verbal, physical, psychological abuse they're exposed to on the daily... And when you're done your day at with your class, sometimes you have to whether deal with extra curriculars and/or teaching plan modifications to catch up to your curriculum, grading, parent concerns, etc.

"ohhh but they get the summer off"

You probably would need the summer off after dealing with all that useless kid drama for all these months.

Sources: my dad was a teacher, the drama that's going on in my kid's class, my neighbor who's been teaching for the past 15 years

Currently if i understand well, this time around they're fighting to put an end to the cuts the government has planned for the next few years.
 
LePhillou said:
... i'd like to see how many people want to take that job for lower salaries.
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I'll bet the lineup would be just as long if the job paid $60K and went year round. I can tell you that when non-union teaching offers that $60K for a 49 week work year they are inundated with applicants.
 
LePhillou said:
I think the reality is, we make them take care of an important aspect of our kids' lives for most of the day while we're making our money. You put in the mix special needs kids in their classes (which they may or may not have an ECE/TA for) while still needing to get through the curriculum for all the other kids, collocated grades (ie. grade 3 and grade 4 put in one general room with 2 teachers, 45+ kids) and i'd like to see how many people want to take that job for lower salaries. Fact of the matter is, kids can't be disciplined anymore, the parents work for their kids instead of working with the teacher as their kid has to be special. On top of that all the verbal, physical, psychological abuse they're exposed to on the daily... And when you're done your day at with your class, sometimes you have to whether deal with extra curriculars and/or teaching plan modifications to catch up to your curriculum, grading, parent concerns, etc.

"ohhh but they get the summer off"

You probably would need the summer off after dealing with all that useless kid drama for all these months.

Sources: my dad was a teacher, the drama that's going on in my kid's class, my neighbor who's been teaching for the past 15 years

Currently if i understand well, this time around they're fighting to put an end to the cuts the government has planned for the next few years.
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That's all fine and dandy but the (supposed) reason for the teacher cuts is a lack of student enrollment. If we have no students we don't need as many teachers, none of us are guaranteed a job in our industry.
My kids education is suffering as a result of the union greed. My daughter plays football, baseball and basketball, guitar club and art club. She is not currently involved in any of them and they recently cancelled her drama club presentation due to lack of teacher availability. It's all a crock.

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I had a teacher this am "on the line" outside a school walk up between the cars at the stop light to hand out one sheet flyers somebody printed.

He completely missed the 'green' message intiative, traffic safety and I felt bullied by his insistance I open my window.

Educators....
 
GreyGhost said:
Although it's complicated, to put it simply, I think the vast majority of teachers are overpaid, some need the boot and ECE's should have a dramatic salary increase as they are doing a very similar role for 25% of the money.

Almost all unions in canada at this point are a pox on society (and surprise, surprise, most are focused on the public sector as that is the only place that can afford their BS).
Click to expand...

Well said. Public sector golden ticket for many undeserving - not all obviously. Entitlement train is out of control. The union directly tells them how to vote in the election. The whole industry is rife with greed and mismanagement from the top down - typical when employed by the people. There isn't any more money left.

So yes I'm tired.
 
Not a hater, but I did get a chuckle weeks ago when the high school teachers were out on a Wednesday waving flags that read “No Cuts to Education”.

Not sure they realize the irony in their actions...ie: teachers cutting class to hold up those signs

There’s a day of education my kids will never get back .


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I'm still confused. Ontario is in a huge mess financially and can't even pay the interest on it's debt. Where do the teachers think the money for an increase is going to come from?
 
I am very confused by the tactics on both sides. I thought dougie was going to use this round to break the union (maybe not complete reset but something along the lines of a 10% salary rollback for teachers with the entire savings used for aces, rejecting that would cripple the "it's for the kids" argument). As it is, they just seem to be ignoring the situation entirely.

As for the unions, while I respect them for doing one day strikes which causes a much smaller ripple in people's lives (and the economy) than a full on walkout, I think it accomplishes very little. People can deal with kids for a few days during the school year. After seeing the giant cheques that wynnebag transferred to the unions after previous strikes, the cynic in me thinks the union is just using these strikes to increase the transfer payment they expect in the future.

To be clear, I dont know what the right way to get this mess resolved is, I am just quite sure that neither party is on that path.
 
Iceman said:
That's all fine and dandy but the (supposed) reason for the teacher cuts is a lack of student enrollment. If we have no students we don't need as many teachers, none of us are guaranteed a job in our industry.
My kids education is suffering as a result of the union greed. My daughter plays football, baseball and basketball, guitar club and art club. She is not currently involved in any of them and they recently cancelled her drama club presentation due to lack of teacher availability. It's all a crock.

Sent from my SM-A530W using Tapatalk
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So according to the govt, lack of student enrolment leads to increasing the average class size to cut costs, which also means that school boards have to cut the teachers for the classes that would lower the averages.
And to be clear we're also talking about certain STEM classes being cut at higher levels (at least from the reports I saw)

If you have less teachers, I'd assume that these teachers that are left to teach also have less free time for extra curriculars.
 
LePhillou said:
(at least from the reports I saw)
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I have a big problem with this too. Both sides release absolute garbage propaganda. I don't know of a source of information that is actually trustworthy if I want to form my own opinion. I basically assume both sides are at best distorting the truth (and that is probably putting it optimistically) as neither side cares about the truth, they just care about the win.
 
MRR11.6 said:
Too bad Duggie couldn't give em the Ronnie Reagan ATC option ! ✈

Overpaid leftist social engineers.
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That move took a lot of guts, but they survived and they broke the headlock the union put on society. Much to the chagrin of the controllers, there were mountains of qualified candidates in the wings, they recovered relatively quickly and the scourge to the public ended forever.

I doubt Dougie has the stones of Regan.
 
I don't think student's education will suffer because of the strike, but I believe will suffer from bigger classrooms, more e-learning.
The high level of education and all of the extracurricular activities students in Ontario have, I believe, are due to the teacher.
I would want the best and brightest for everyone's kids no matter where they live or what school they want to attend.

unions have been fighting for better salary, safer work conditions, more vacation (family time), sick leave, better health insurance etc. These are not permanent, so the fight continues. Better for you to be in a union than not. Unions will tell members which political party to vote for but obviously, members can choose whichever political party they want even if it's against their own economic interests.
Lucky for us, in this country workers can legally organize to obtain the above, some call it entitlement, I call it worker's right
 
The union is screaming about an increase in class sizes that would still be smaller than the class sizes were when I was in school.
 
Here's what I would do:

1) Make the work year year round. Based on tenure, teachers should be expected to teach elective classes, and summer school - OR - bank school year extra-curricular hours as lieu time to be used in summer breaks.
2) Make Vacation entitlements 4 weeks per year for the first 10 years, then 6 weeks per year. Today a York Region HS teacher gets 13 weeks vacation each year. Teachers in semestered schools get an additional 5-10 days off during exam periods.
3) Limit collective bargaining to hours, wages and benefits. Make class size, delivery methods (i.e on-line options), curriculum content 'out of scope' for bargaining. Teachers are delivering, not creating the deliver the curriculum, they do not create it nor are they qualified to determine how it's delivered.
4) Set a wage freeze until such time as supply of teachers meets demand.
 
justride said:
I don't think student's education will suffer because of the strike, but I believe will suffer from bigger classrooms, more e-learning.
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The argument here is that bigger classrooms, e-learning, content are out of scope for a union. Those are things that should be left to the Ministry of Education, part of the gov't that citizens elect.
justride said:
The high level of education and all of the extracurricular activities students in Ontario have, I believe, are due to the teacher.

I would want the best and brightest for everyone's kids no matter where they live or what school they want to attend.
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No argument from me, but what is your point?
justride said:
unions have been fighting for better salary, safer work conditions, more vacation (family time), sick leave, better health insurance etc. These are not permanent, so the fight continues. Better for you to be in a union than not. Unions will tell members which political party to vote for but obviously, members can choose whichever political party they want even if it's against their own economic interests.
Lucky for us, in this country workers can legally organize to obtain the above, some call it entitlement, I call it worker's right
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The flip side of this is they won that fight decades ago. Today they are no longer fighting the good fight, they are holding the public hostage. The last bastion for unions are the PSUs, trade unions have already proven that greed kills. Don't get me wrong, I have no vendetta against teachers, they are the same greedy as everyone else. My issue is gov't letting them get so strong that the tail now wags the dog.
 
FullMotoJacket said:
The union is screaming about an increase in class sizes that would still be smaller than the class sizes were when I was in school.
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You should see what parents demand of teachers and how much more care each kid takes. When you were in school kids were more disciplined and teachers could actually teach. Now parents drop off their spoiled royalty and are livid when they don't get As.

Considering teachers are responsible for a big chunk of a child's upbringing I actually support higher wages to get better teachers. People complain about teacher incompetence because that's what 60k gets you. Really where are we headed as a society if we start cutting education? The world is shrinking and competition is fierce. Do we want to compete for assembly line jobs or highly skilled industries that require a lot of education? Cutting education won't get us out of debt, making more money with educated people will.
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