There is a looming threat of a potential post secondary teacher strike. Now, the teacher for my course is apparently not part of the teacher's union but I've been told they might possibly lock the school. It's just my luck. I finally get off my ass to go to school and this happens. Am I selfish? I don't think so. I'm just tired of teacher strikes. You can set your watch by it.
One of the sticking points is salary of course. The union is looking for a 4.7 percent increase. Obviously there's more to it. As I read through articles on-line I see that they want an improved "formal workload formula", teachers want to be able to choose evaluation style (I just don't like the sound of that... Makes you think evaluation would be open to individual educators' interpretation) and classroom size. I can't argue with classroom size at all. Full time courses are usually overloaded. From what I hear anyways. The good news is that both sides agree on one thing. The quality of education for the students. As annoyed as I may be I can still understand some of the reasons that teachers may need to strike. I only have a problem with the salary increase. They anticipated a 2 percent increase from the province. They just want more. In a time where almost everyone is hurting financially it's going to be hard for them to garner sympathy from the public. To me 2 or 3 percent seems reasonable, 4.7 percent is a little too much as far as I'm concerned.
On February the 17th members of the academic union (OPSEU) voted to support a strike that will begin March 3rd if a settlement is not reached. The mediator has called both parties back to the table on March 1st and 2nd in an effort to reach a settlement. Maybe I'm a pessimist but I can't see them reaching an agreement.
This probably doesn't affect most of you but I just found it interesting that there is very little media coverage on this topic. I only found out about this 5 days ago. I was reading the college paper before class yesterday and it would seem that most of the students are largely unaware. Right now all we get to hear about is the latest scandal from the liberal party and The Right Honourable Paul Martin. Does the lack of coverage speak about how we view these strikes? Are they so commonplace now that no one wants to hear about it anymore?
Sadly I actually had a hard time finding articles that had facts instead of opinions.
Articles I read that had the most information:
http://www.uoit.ca
http://www.thepioneer.com
One of the sticking points is salary of course. The union is looking for a 4.7 percent increase. Obviously there's more to it. As I read through articles on-line I see that they want an improved "formal workload formula", teachers want to be able to choose evaluation style (I just don't like the sound of that... Makes you think evaluation would be open to individual educators' interpretation) and classroom size. I can't argue with classroom size at all. Full time courses are usually overloaded. From what I hear anyways. The good news is that both sides agree on one thing. The quality of education for the students. As annoyed as I may be I can still understand some of the reasons that teachers may need to strike. I only have a problem with the salary increase. They anticipated a 2 percent increase from the province. They just want more. In a time where almost everyone is hurting financially it's going to be hard for them to garner sympathy from the public. To me 2 or 3 percent seems reasonable, 4.7 percent is a little too much as far as I'm concerned.
On February the 17th members of the academic union (OPSEU) voted to support a strike that will begin March 3rd if a settlement is not reached. The mediator has called both parties back to the table on March 1st and 2nd in an effort to reach a settlement. Maybe I'm a pessimist but I can't see them reaching an agreement.
This probably doesn't affect most of you but I just found it interesting that there is very little media coverage on this topic. I only found out about this 5 days ago. I was reading the college paper before class yesterday and it would seem that most of the students are largely unaware. Right now all we get to hear about is the latest scandal from the liberal party and The Right Honourable Paul Martin. Does the lack of coverage speak about how we view these strikes? Are they so commonplace now that no one wants to hear about it anymore?
Sadly I actually had a hard time finding articles that had facts instead of opinions.
Articles I read that had the most information:
http://www.uoit.ca
http://www.thepioneer.com
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