Indeed

Except for the rare anomaly, Administrative (e.g. principals)are the highest paid in education. If you take this as an average they ARE the highest paid.

And they are not part of the union.

The higher up the proverbial Admin. food chain you go, the higher the salaries...I would suggest this is both un-necessary and disproportionate.

Almost all admin salaries are 6 figures to start..and, no, we're talking about entry level...

I hope Public Employee Unions will be banned in Canada

It's absurd that public employee unions, whose members are forced to join, are allowed to pour huge amounts of money into the political party that will bend over the most to meet their demands. The Democrats are bought and paid for in the U.S., and the NDP is bought and paid for in Canada. Do a Google search for the top ten contributors to the BC NDP, every one a union, whose members donate to the NDP - whether they like it or not.

Um, Sooke

Do the same search for Republicans and Liberals and--in my best Keannu Reeves: Whoa, Dude...lookie there: corporations abound.

You don't 'spose this is simply because these parties represent the clearer divisions within society...I know, I know....now I'm just talking crazy...

Something is absurd alright, Sooke ;-)

Moderators

Can you add a "suggest as dimwitted" button

X-D

Tongue-in-cheek....tongue-in-cheek

wcullen

Don't you know --- corporations are our friends....

Workers of the world... unite

It looks like corporate propaganda and big business has won the day when people here post such hateful and dismissive comments about hard working teachers (BC's are among the lowest paid in Canada) - oh wait, I forgot - anyone could do their job (so why aren't you, Frances?) and understaffed overworked public servants such as social workers, environmental enforcers etc. If you like a world where everyone earns $8 an hour and there is no tax base (among other issues) to support your infrastructure (e.g.the world of the maquiladoras of Mexico), then your are on are on the right path. Just don't come crying when you have lousy infrastructure, corrupt officials and environmental disasters. As stated in the article - there is a class war on the workers of North America - and the economic oligarchs are currently winning - at great cost to society.

This article begs the

This article begs the question: Why aren’t they in Ontario dealing with the repeal of the right to strike?

Huffinton Post

Here's a history lesson for those who have not fully decided whether or not they are going to wear the brown shirts. I think it is an article worth reading.

Alan Grayson.Former U.S. Congressman from Florida's 8th District
Posted: March 12, 2011 01:32 AM.

"Did They Die in Vain?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/did-they-die-in-vain_b_834856.html

Sooke

Something to warm the cockles of your heart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/estevan_coal_strike.html

labour costs for union shops

The labour cost (including benefits) for the average North American automobile is about 8% of the sticker price. It's not the union workers who are wanting too much that is causing problems for businesses in North America. It's the unmitigated greed of the international corporate world coupled with the buy-in of North American consumers. The outsourcing of labour problem could be solved quite efficiently if Canadians would refuse to buy products not made in Canada. Further, Canadians should demand that their gasoline is refined in Canada, and that their is value added to every raw resource that leaves the shores. If Americans or Chinese want tar sands oil, they can buy it after it has been refined (at least more refined than it currently is). If they want timbre or ore then it needs to sawn or smelted here. The Canadian labour costs are not prohibitive to gobs of money being made off of these resources. Further, shipping costs will be reduced as the product will be lighter. The break even point for BC's Highland Valley Copper mine is less than a buck a pound. Copper has averaged well over $3 per pound for the last 5 years!

SharingIsGood

Nicely said.

I always wonder why people are so willing to attack the workers when it is the active share-holders who drive the issue.

I see a similar approach in people willing to attack teachers for problems in the education system instead of the people--from principals to Minister--who are the ones mandated and paid to be responsible for that system.

I'm not saying ONLY they are at fault (hardly), rather that attacking teachers--like attacking workers--is a form of moral and intellectual cowardice. Hold those with the responsibility responsible, not those whom you falsely burden with the whole responsibility--yet who have little ability to affect change--and then attack them. This is, in essence, blaming the victim...

the real problem

with the American budget deficit is their continued participation in wars. Wars of all kinds. They never seem to go there. Stop the wars dammit!

frances is right

The trouble with websites like the Tyee is that they become ghettos of like minded thinkers and independent thought is discouraged.
So now that everyone's finished hi-fiving each other, I'd like to say frances is correct. In Vancouver teachers in the 10/11 school year now have an extra TEN paid days off a year in exchange for theoretically working a few extra minutes a day. This was negotiated last summer as a cost saving measure!
It IS time for a reality check. There must be some kind of connection between productivity and compensation. There are many in what frances terms the superclass of workers who don't really have any concept of what an honest day's work is. It's become a game of not how much you are worth, but how much you can get
And as long as the NDP bases their support on public sector union workers, they will always be on the outside looking in because the majority of ordinary people agree with this.

Leela

Like Frances, your ignorance is astounding, and your agenda/ideology so painfully obvious.

What was negotiated was a lengthening of the day-no one is getting 10 paid days off...it is cost cutting in the operations budget.

Like I've said above, this type of ignorance is a reflection of moral and intellectual cowardice.

You want to hold someone to account? Show some courage and actually do something, like holding the people who have the power and purse-strings to account...and if you think that's teachers there's no helping you...

There is nothing independent about your thought: it is the rhetoric of those who are feeding you these lines.

Oh, to clarify

It wasn't "negotiated"--it was decided by the VBE and above...there was no input from teachers....

crh - wcullen

Yes, their wars also enter into their fiscal and moral bankruptcy. Always looking for someone to attack, even when it doesn't make sense - kinda like Leela. wcullen proved Francis wrong, but Leela couldn't leave it alone. When nobody but the very wealthy has anything, what kind of life do the Republican,neo-liberal,tea-bagging, Conservatives think will exist in Canada? What kind of world will their grandchildren inherit? Being poor and literate can only co-exist for so long. Sooner or later the have-nots will take what has been stolen from them by people who believe they have a greater right to the world's resources by virtue of their birth and laws being written to favour the already wealthy and the multinational corporations.

Who broke the company

If the State were a company it would be bankrupt. But the State is not a company yet the shareholders are the citizens.

Where in the real world would the shareholders have to pay into a bankrupt company.
Let the stupid lenders sue the managers (politicians) and eat their losses. Wisconsin is in reality owned by the people of Wisconsin, not by their Governor or the banks that he put them in debt to.
Do we own B.C. or does the bank that covers Campbell's billion dollar deficits?
I don't think bad unions bankrupt companies or governments. I think as most intelligent people would, that it all comes down to bad management.
Unions may have bad management as well, but it is not very often they are stupid enough to bankrupt their employer. It would seem we need a politician to do that.

So, when do we buy ourselves an election?

"He was elected with money from the Koch brothers"

Really? Last time I looked, it took ballots to get elected, not dollar-bills! Are we not getting into a defeatist mode here, and not realizing that every time we have a discussion with someone, we have a unique chance of pursuing a better agenda? Are we still keeping our views to tight, 'safe' circles, or are we capitalizing on every situation, even if it is in one of those places where we think it might not be in our best interest, personally speaking, to 'make waves', lest the good folks might take us for 'commies'.

In actual fact, these thin red/blue/purple lines (is this metaphor-messing to gladden your heart, latrans?) have all ceased to have any meaning, as we are dealing with a degree of craven-ness that will usurp, gobble, adopt, co-opt or engulf any and all bits of assorted ideology, if it will help make a buck. So, join the good gabfest and preach the evangelium to any and all that you can corner, and snob appeal be damned. We, broads and blokes of Homo sapiens sapiens, have our backs against the wall of infinite growth, and this nonsense is costing us. Enough is enough.

The BCTF is a very poor example of 'public sector unions', by the way. Many, yours truly included, would agree that the items taken out by bills 27 and 28 ought to be standards set by legislation, ensuring that all students in our public school system receive the same quality from one BCTF contract to the next. Hence they should be above ever being made bargaining chips in collective bargaining. I am pretty sure (actually damn sure) that my own trade union, involved with public health care, would never put on the table questions of what quality of care was available to the patients. The condemnation of Bill 29 and regulations exactly had to do with terms of employment and nothing else, and this is why the health care workers prevailed.

Collective agreements are about 'terms of employment'. Teachers can discuss compensation and benefit packages; reasonable workload; job description and -duties. But to involve what the end-user receives as the standard in these bargaining endeavors is messy and hands an arbitrary amount of power to a place where it will become subject to whatever else the bargaining involves, and how the priorities shape up. Speaking on behalf of grade school students of BC, this is unacceptable. I think that no matter how unpalatable these bills may be to a 'my union, right or wrong' head, some sanity may now prevail, where there was little or none before. Secondarily, we can discuss the quality of the legislation per se, and examine whether the standards it sets are actually good ones. but that is for another day...

unions

While I agree that unions are necessary to protect the rights of workers, the unfortunate reality is that in my experience in BC, most unions are there to protect the rights of only the most senior workers in that particular union, as well as the administration. The rest are only paying to support their privileges. If unions want popular support from all of us, then they need to stop taking care of themselves alone and start working hard to help and protect all workers everywhere, including workers in countries where our jobs are all moving to due to inhumane working conditions. I find it hypocritical when unions here ask me to come out in support of unions when no union has ever cared about my working conditions or wages. And as for those managerial money pits, unions have those too. It seems to me that many in unions have it good and don't really want to get involved in doing anything to help the rest of us out, and I think that maybe it is time to rethink the entire union situation. Many small and exclusive unions only serves to divide people. Why not a single labour union for all, as they have in Sweden? This would at least protect workers from the divide and rule ethic of big business and government. Exclusivity should not be part of unions, everyone should have the same rights of protection and not just those who have been lucky enough to have a union position for ten years or more. When the government of BC broke the HEU in 2003, it was done with public support on the part of those people who work without union support at all. All these people need to be included by unions if unions what everyone to support them, isn't that a given? Come on union members, get out and help the rest of us as well, don't just bask in your great benefits and forget about the outside world.

Shannon, unemployed single mom with no union protection at all.

Some really valid points, Shannon

"Why not a single labour union for all, as they have in Sweden?"

We actually have two national unions: The Canadian Labor Congress (CLC) and The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE). Most of the specialized unions of which you speak are subsidiaries of these, and equally of the BC Federation of Labor, known as the 'BC FED'. The little unions often speak through these bigger collectives in labor matters.

I do not know whether the Swedish 'big' union is divided into smaller units or not, but I cannot see how one can successfully bargain conditions of employment in an environment one has little or no knowledge of. At the very least, there must be a system of coinsultation from specialized areas.

To your claim that unions only benefit senior employees, I would say that this is somewhat outdated information. When I was a 'junior' employee, I would have made the same claim and rightfully so, but over the years, the balance in bargaining proposals from union side have shifted a good deal to be towards centering on benefits for young family men and-women, and although I am now pretty much on my way out of 'regular' organized labor and am therefore one of the senior members being comparatively short-changed, I would say I welcome the shift very much, for over some years of steady work which is how you achieve seniority, there are so many ways you can find to better your situation, through work and wise use of resources, while it is the young, who haul the heavy load of parenting and often harder work, who have less with which to meet any sudden hardship. I am glad to see their situation improved in the form of better benefits.

If anything grieves me it is to hear or read the words 'no union protection'. I hope and pray that your situation will improve in a not-too-distant future. I can, personally and by experience of others I know, vouch for the value of 'union protection', not to make one fat, but to secure the most basic rights when no one else is there to look out for them.

Mussolini said:

Fascism should more correctly be called corporatism, because it is the corporations who rule through a tame government. (It may not be word for word).
Another thought that occurs to me is that in effect corporatism and communism are two sides of the same coin: in both cases a small group of people rules the majority.(based on personal experience)

AS for Ms. Clark, I think she's a cuter version of Mr. Campbell. That might make her more dangerous maybe? She's probably smarter too. Even more dangerous!

Top end slackers, both public & private

Leela, you've got to be kidding!

"The trouble with websites like the Tyee is that they become ghettos of like minded thinkers and independent thought is discouraged."

It's true that some people let their passions foment comments that can strike emotional responses, but for the most part, it is a multi-viewpoint forum for mostly articulate discussion and debate.

"Independent thought is being discouraged"? On this article topic alone, consider the various viewpoints of dorothy, bisquy and others on the value of unions, as well as their flaws.

"...ghettos of like minded thinkers..."

a. There are times when people need to work at becoming like minded on issues, through ongoing discussion, to get things done.

Consider our "Representative Assembly", drawn from nearly all walks of life, that became "like minded" about moving away from our "First Past the Post: election system. Some critics called them a club as well.

b. I dare you to find a Tea Party "ghetto" or other hard right forum that allows more "freedom of thought"

Forgot

Oh yeh, I forgot, I said hard right because "soft right" barely exists anymore in the political scene, as evidenced by the disappearance of the "Red Tories" of the former PC party, or, in the U.S., the moderate Republicans.

Don't need to talk about "discouraging independent thought" in Harperland.