BC Teachers vs Provincial Government on Contract | [3-Day Strike]

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by Zassk

Teaching is not in fact an arts degree, it is a second 2-year degree (normally compressed into 4 semesters across 12-15 months). Yes, you can certainly take an "easy" first degree to get there, and many teachers do (Phys Ed degrees are my personal pet peeve), but that also restricts which teaching jobs you are qualified to work.

The bottom line is that teachers have attended and paid for more education than most university grads, and should be compared to professions with similar amount of education. The general arts grad running the shift at McDonald's for $32k/year is not comparable and really isn't relevant to this discussion.

Many of the attributes Alex listed about engineers above are actually reserved for Professional Engineers, and are not applicable to new hires in that profession. A P.Eng is significant career development, normally 5-10 years beyond the degree, and I would agree that it's not comparable to a teaching profession. It also pays much better.

I don't think the teaching wage is far off base here. In Ontario, perhaps.

Doing a teaching masters after a 4 year arts degree takes about as long as the average engineering degree. It's also what most people going into teaching take. Most engineers I went to school with took 5 to 5.5 years to graduate.

The only thing that is P.Eng specific is getting sued. As an EIT, you get your supervising P.Eng sued and are covered by their insurance. You still need professional development hours.

[Millennium2002]

Apparently the government will send the teachers out of job action later next week.

CTV BC: Legislation ending teachers' strike to pass by Thursday

By: The Canadian Press
Date: Thursday Mar. 8, 2012 11:39 AM PT

The B.C. government says it expects legislation forcing the province's public school teachers to suspend job action to pass through the legislature by next Thursday.
...

[CameronT120]

What I'd be curious to know is why teachers are unionized and not a self regulating profession like Architects and Engineers? The union seems to be doing more harm than good and if teachers want to be taken seriously as a profession by the public, maybe it's time to think about breaking away.

[whatnext]

While I'm not sympathetic to the teachers asking for a raise when other civil servants get Net Zero, they have a point about restoring special needs funding. A teacher has to cope with and educate over 20 regular high energy kids, throw in a couple special needs kids and that draws away from the attention the others receive.

This is all a symptom of Gordo's ill advised income tax cuts when he first took office. Since those we've been inundated with: the carbon tax; the aborted HST; tolls; large transit fare increases; etc. It is clear Campbell cut revenue below what the province needs to deliver the services citizens expect.

There's no surer way to stoke a tax revolt than the "death by a thousand cuts" taxes and fees we've seen since. The worst outcome would a California style Prop 13 meltdown, where citizens just say 'enough" and shutdown all spending.

[usog]

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/BCT...945/story.html

Okay so now the BCTF is a political movement/group now wtf, children first right?

[WarrenC12]

Unions and the NDP go together like macaroni and cheese. I guess they forgot the part where the NDP didn't treat them any better than the current liberals in their labour disputes.

Hint: maybe the problem isn't with the government of the day.