Ontario teachers’ unions out of touch with reality?
Posted by Sandy on 12th May 2008
As Ottawa Citizen journalist Randall Denley wrote on the weekend, “the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario has established bargaining positions that are badly out of sync with the province’s faltering economy.” While I suspect these positions are perhaps over the top because they expect to get only part of what they ask for, it really does show that the union is out of touch with reality.
Ontario is suffering economically. Many people are out of work because of the decline of various manufacturing sectors. There are threats that we might even become a “have not” province within the next couple of years. Yet, according to Denley’s column, here are some examples of what the teachers’ unions are apparently asking for:
- a five-per-cent salary increase in each year of a two-year deal;
- higher starting pay for teachers and one year less to get to top salary;
- class-size reductions and caps in all grades;
- 10 days a year for report cards and assessment;
- a near-doubling of preparation time;
- actual teaching and supervision time to decline to 1,125 minutes a week from 1,500;
- full benefit costs to be covered by school boards; and
- principals and vice-principals to be prevented from teaching.
Now, recall, during the last two Ontario election campaigns, Dalton McGuinty said he was the “Education Premier” because he brought peace to the Ontario education system. Given these expectations of “entitlement,” I question at what cost to the taxpayer and the economy McGuinty is getting that so-called peace. Is he getting peace, for example, by simply giving the teachers’ unions everything they ask for?
Posted in Education Topics, Teacher Unions | 3 Comments »