Peace in education

[JBen]

The teacher haters might want to trot down to your local municipality and ask questions about all your PUC workers, snow plow drivers, hole diggers etc....you might be surprised at the benefits they are receiving and broaden your horizons about who you are ticked off with...and I'll bet they are all unionized.

Krakadawn I want to preface this with a caveat. Things being "tabled" are not direct opposition, rather are point/counter-point etc.

Maybe the PUC workers, snow plow drivers, hole diggers, Nurses, LEO, others and their Unions, should look at "reality" see what is "real" in the "real" world, and see if theres places room within their ministries/industries where savings can be found.

If you want to label me a "hater", fine I can deal with that despite it be patently untrue.
1) when people don't have good counter arguments/points they tend to result to insults
2) I look at a province with a host of problems, big problems, real people paying real prices, and more on the horizon and I wonder if some really don't "get it".
3) And few if any of those that are "part of the problem" demonstrably (pardon the word play) being willing to seriously first look within, look in the mirror per se. No whats occurring, as always occurs..

Who me, what about them.....

Me?
I'll tell you how many sick days I get. A big fat zero. I get 5 weeks vacation (far less than teachers) and 1 PD/personal day (far less than teachers). My company is fairly progressive though and their main priority is that we get the job done. When I need time I can take time. If I need more than 3 days.
Short term disability

If Children are the Unions/teachers main priority. One wonders why they aren't spending time and energy to see if in fact, there aren't savings that might be found. If in fact that haven't over the years received raises that were a bit rich, or if the salary/pension isn't in fact.."a bit much" or any other number of things.....Money, which in turn could be used to hire more teachers.
Funny that.

[terrym]

The teacher haters might want to trot down to your local municipality and ask questions about all your PUC workers, snow plow drivers, hole diggers etc....you might be surprised at the benefits they are receiving and broaden your horizons about who you are ticked off with...and I'll bet they are all unionized.

Some of my closest friends and hunting partners are teachers. My daughter is studying to be one. No, I don't hate all teachers. What I don't have time for is the ones who feel hard done by and entitled to be exempted from reality. And reality is this Province is broke. There is no money for any kind of increases. In fact they should be laying off people to return to a balanced budget. Borrowing on our children's heads to fund salary increases is pathetic. Not one single civil servant will be in the food line if their salary was to be frozen for 5 years. It's a proven fact they are paid @14% above the private sector. I would freeze every single PS sector wage for 5 years. If this is too much of a hardship they could always seek other employment elsewhere. My guess is very few would.

[krakadawn]

Call it what you want but it is exactly what happens and I guarantee you it happens all over the Province in most schools. With it being so hard to land teaching jobs in Ontario interestingly my buddies daughter in law got hired right after graduation. The fact her father was a retired Principal and her mother and sister also are teachers I guess is pure coincidence right? I guess there weren't any unemployed grads in the Cambridge school district? You can quote all the rules you want but if there is no will to abide by them or enforce them it means nothing. This government pretty well gives the finger to us everyday. It was illegal to wipe the hard drives of incriminating evidence with the gas plants. It was illegal to try and bribe a candidate in the Sudbury byelection. Do you think for a minute that they care about substitute teacher rules?

Terry, I can't disagree with a word you've said here, believe me I understand how people choose not to follow protocol and as far as the Sudbury thing goes, it smacks of being criminal but I have given you the local process as best I can.

[krakadawn]

Some of my closest friends and hunting partners are teachers. My daughter is studying to be one. No, I don't hate all teachers. What I don't have time for is the ones who feel hard done by and entitled to be exempted from reality.

And we could apply that logic to just about anyone, I'd be onboard with that for sure.

[fishermccann]

Nepotism happens in ALL fields ,companies, job classifications , how -why, do you think it would not happen in the public service. Like many- most jobs , it is not what you know , but who you know.

[werner.reiche]

Nepotism happens in ALL fields ,companies, job classifications , how -why, do you think it would not happen in the public service. Like many- most jobs , it is not what you know , but who you know.

Very, very little in the IT private sector, unless the person being brought in is a superstar. Most private (non-union) companies will not tolerate an employee who is only there because he is someone's kid, brother etc. unless the someone is the boss.

Many IT companies are even wary of hiring friends of current employees because of the clique factor.

The real issue with PS nepotism is that in many public sector jobs have many, many applicants for a single position - and that the person hired is frequently not the best qualified person - but has a connection to someone already working there.

[krakadawn]

Krakadawn I want to preface this with a caveat. Things being "tabled" are not direct opposition, rather are point/counter-point etc.

Maybe the PUC workers, snow plow drivers, hole diggers, Nurses, LEO, others and their Unions, should look at "reality" see what is "real" in the "real" world, and see if theres places room within their ministries/industries where savings can be found.

If you want to label me a "hater", fine I can deal with that despite it be patently untrue.
1) when people don't have good counter arguments/points they tend to result to insults
2) I look at a province with a host of problems, big problems, real people paying real prices, and more on the horizon and I wonder if some really don't "get it".
3) And few if any of those that are "part of the problem" demonstrably (pardon the word play) being willing to seriously first look within, look in the mirror per se. No whats occurring, as always occurs..

Who me, what about them.....

Me?
I'll tell you how many sick days I get. A big fat zero. I get 5 weeks vacation (far less than teachers) and 1 PD/personal day (far less than teachers). My company is fairly progressive though and their main priority is that we get the job done. When I need time I can take time. If I need more than 3 days.
Short term disability

If Children are the Unions/teachers main priority. One wonders why they aren't spending time and energy to see if in fact, there aren't savings that might be found. Money, which in turn could be used to hire more teachers.
Funny that.

JB, this thread has gone down hill pretty quick. It has moved from discontent with our current or past governments onto the heals of the teachers. I think we would be far better off hammering away at the various levels of government who got us into these messes in the first place.

I can direct numerous arrows at our current government because they've had time to get things right. That said, a clear understanding is required when discussing how we got to be where we are. We could post up the recent governments that we've had and create a significant list of their short comings.

I mentioned Harris back a few posts and several wanted to jump all over me for that. Go visit your local municipalities and ask how the down shifting financially has affected us for years to come.

[terrym]

Nepotism happens in ALL fields ,companies, job classifications , how -why, do you think it would not happen in the public service. Like many- most jobs , it is not what you know , but who you know.

Absolutely, no argument. But it should not be the case with taxpayer money. Every damned government at every level and every party does it but that doesn't make it right.

[terrym]

I mentioned Harris back a few posts and several wanted to jump all over me for that. Go visit your local municipalities and ask how the down shifting financially has affected us for years to come.

The Liberals have had 2 majority governments since that legislation, ruled for over 12years. They could have eliminated it or modified it years ago. Harris has no dog in this race anymore.

[krakadawn]

Bear hunter's might disagree with you on that one.