Originally Posted by
waterrat
Hello all: To get the ball roiling, I am anti union, have been an Army guy for 29 yrs, never had one. BUT, the flip side, I am married to a teacher. So here is the teacher side of the story. This is third party, and as a man, we all know I only listen to less than half of what she says.
It is not the money!!!!, It is about class size, and the prov. involvement with daily class activity. As like the rest of us, thay have lost sick days and severance, we got paid out, they did not. It was just gone, and a cap of ten days. And a twist added, if the go over their allotted 10 sicks days, they get a reduced pay any days after that.
They are paid on a 10 month year, 190 working days. The can either collect it all in 10 months, not draw UI during the summer, or take it over 12 months. During the last contract issue, last year, they had many items removed, first was the right to binding arbitration, the prov just walked away, passed a law sayiing it was illegal and ordered them back.
The also had three days pay taken off their salary, and legal way to contest it. They have not had a raise in many years.
Classsize: The current size is 21 kids elementary age. If there are special needs kids, they are sposed to have an EA(education assitant) per special needs kid. The purposed change would up the size to 30, and drop the EA. Save money. SO to walk a mile in them shoes, place yourselves in a class or 30 4 year olds, and have one in a wheelchair, and two with violent outbursts from any of the ailments. ADD, ADHA, Autism, etc.
Teachers are all permitted to have at least one forty minute prep per day, to mark, plan and eat. The new purposal is to have the board dictate what they do on these preps. The biggest one is do coverage for the EA jobs that were cut. Second it to run sports, clubs, field trips all mandated by the management. Sounds like fun eh!!
Report Cards: Every teacher has submitted grades/marks to the principal by the date demanded. It was a board decision to publish or not, but they have all the marks.
My wife is currently attending the year end BBQ, where she is prepping/cooking/serving free food to all parents and kids. Oh, and she just worked a full day first.
This entire new action from the prov is designed to drive out older teacher who are the top of the pay scale, one modeled after the Prov employee's union, to hire new teacher's at a lower scale, and do what they are told, just to keep a job.
So, as I stated in the opening, NOT a union fan, but am tired of all the crap my wife is through.
So to close, I will chastise most of the previous comments on the fact that they are all based on what the NEWS says, please, if you're gonna cast stones, get all the facts, not just what they want you to hear.
Ian Thomson
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