If you can read this…

With all due respect to the Editor, I have something to say about his take on those “coddled” teachers. If you know me, and many of you do, you know I have never been accused of having any internal dialogue. Oh, I’ve tried to keep my opinions to myself but I darn near exploded when I read last week’s editorial comments as regards our “coddled” teachers. While I should be thrilled he had an opinion (because an opinion indicates a person is actually paying attention) I’m not at all. It seems our beloved Editor has missed the point of the current education workers’ job action.

You’ll notice I wrote “education workers.” Because I wasn’t standing over him while he tapped out his piece about teachers, I didn’t have the opportunity to tell him it was about education workers and because I wasn’t there I didn’t make my point about it not being a money or quality of education issue. This job action is all about the provincial government (which, by the way, is not the education workers’ employer— Boards of education are the employers of education workers) putting themselves above human rights legislation and above employment standards legislation and way beyond the notion of education workers having civil rights.

In all of my 60-plus years, I have only met one person who got into the business of educating for the money and the two months off during the summer. Surprise, surprise. He just happens to be a teacher who came from the non-unionized, corporate world of big salaries, long hours, expense accounts, no extracurricular activities (at least he was never asked to collect pizza-day money or supervise a school yard) and, of course, all- expenses-paid business trips. After less than two years in the classroom (having started at the bottom of the teaching pay grid—because that’s where you start in the education business—at about 80 per cent less than he had been earning) he is just about ready to pack his chalk and pointer to head back into the corporate world. He quite obviously left his homework on the bus before making his move. He openly admits he didn’t know students came to class with so much baggage. Indeed, he also admitted he was surprised to find just getting his students to sit down and pay attention was as big a part of the job as dishing up his well-planned lessons. Boo hoo. As for two months off in the summer, well, two months off without pay it is and there are still 12 months of living in a year.

No sir, it’s not about the pay, Rick. And, don’t ever again say teachers are coddled. I’ll wager you—dollars to doughnuts—you wouldn’t last a semester in a classroom or even a morning, for that matter. Ten minutes into yard duty, on a snowy, cold day after helping a dozen kids into snowboots, snowsuits and tuques, and you’d be looking for a coffee and a gabfest with your cronies. But that’s not the way it works in a school. Kids don’t take breaks, except to throw up at your desk or sneeze on your daybook or piddle on the floor. As a parent, you must know kids need attention every waking moment of their “working day,” whether they’re elementary students or secondary students. If you’d be in the elementary system, it would only take a day of nose wiping, tantrum soothing and whining before you’re calling in sick, dipping into your sick time.

As a parent, your children benefit immensely being in a safe classroom with staff who care and support their students, your children. As for the EXTRACURRICULARS, well isn’t that a great big target to shoot at when you’re a bit put out by educational workers’ job actions. Education workers volunteer to host fundraisers, to supervise track and field meets, to stage musicals, to bring snacks and school supplies to students who are in need. No one, not you and certainly not the provincial government, has the right to pressure or chastise or name-call when an education worker doesn’t volunteer to count the quarters and dimes on pizza day or put together a Christmas play to make you feel festive.

Our provincial government is attempting to get rid of educational workers’ rights to collective bargaining. Indeed, this government would love to see the back end of all unions as they send workers headlong into the way-back machine. These are the same unions whose members have worked for decades on behalf of all workers for statutory holidays, minimum wage, the right to a safe workplace, vacation entitlement, pay equity, severance pay, protection against unscrupulous employers, sick pay, harassment in the workplace, leave of absences for family care, maternity and paternity benefits and on and on. Often people who are not union workers seem to have a problem with union workers. I get it. I have worked for unscrupulous employers in a non-union environment and was incredibly jealous and, perhaps a bit critical of unionized workers. This educational workers issue is about safeguarding employees’ democratic right to bargain collectively with their employer. This issue is about a government that believes it is above the laws created to protect employees. No, Mr. Editor, this isn’t about “coddled teachers” who don’t live in your world of self-employment—your choice, by the way. This educational workers issue is all about Bill C-115. I believe Bill C- 115 has been misnamed the “Putting Students First Act.” It should have been entitled, “Educational Workers Subjugation Act.”

If you can read this, thank an education worker.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca