Big Guy

So the 2,000 plus delegates to the Ontario provincial Liberal leadership convention have just chosen Kathleen Wynne as successor to Dalton McGuinty as party leader and Ontario’s new premier.  I believe that this is going to be the first and last gay female Premier of Ontario for a very, very long time.  The Liberals appear to have accepted the fact that they will be in the minority after the next election with Tim Hudak’s Conservatives already making plans for taking Ontario on a quick right turn and back to the Mike Harris vision for the province.  This will be an interesting time.

Years ago when it was time for a new contract between the unions and the three major auto manufacturers in North America, the unions would target only one of them, negotiate (strike if they had to) and eventually sign a contract. It was generally understood and accepted that the same contract would be agreed to for the other manufacturers. The union targeted a different company every negotiation so only one company would be shut down for any one negotiation period.

So now we come to the current impasse between teacher unions and the Ontario government. With a $17 billion deficit, our government had decided that part of the solution was a multi-year wage freeze and a reduction in benefits for all employees. The government managed to negotiate such a deal with a few teacher unions and then passed Bill 115 which would impose a similar settlement on all teachers. The expectation was that this offer was to be a template for all provincial public service employees.

From the unions point of view, teachers are perceived the most sympathetic group of employees. It appears that all these unions decided that the teachers would march to the front and carry the public service banner into the fight. Even though the legislature was prorogued and the legality of the legislation was to be decided by the courts the teachers (knowingly or unknowingly) accepted the lead.

The idea of using student sports, clubs, presentations and other extracurricular activities as bargaining chips is a very effective if unsavory tactic. So now on one side we have a government with no leader and a $17 billion deficit and on the other side we have the enormous power of all the public service employees using the teachers as front line troops – troops which are now talking strike action and using children’s education as cannon fodder for the battle. In the center of this fray we have the innocent students who have a right to an undisturbed educational experience and working parents scrambling to arrange for day supervision for their children.

The only winners will be the provincial opposition parties and the rest of the public unions. The eventual settlement of this teacher contract dispute will be the norm for all public service contracts in Ontario. The current government has little expectation of being elected to a fourth consecutive term and most of the public service will have survived relatively unscathed with a new contract without a strike. I fear that what will remain in tatters will be the total positive school experience for our children and the reputation of the teaching profession.

Switched over to the United States Politics forum section.

This just in from the OSSTF:

Strike action for bargaining units in a legal strike position will commence on November 7, 2012. Your Bargaining Unit President will inform you when strike action in your specific bargaining unit will begin.

The following list of sanctions applies to all Teacher and Occasional Teacher Bargaining Unit members.

Occasional teacher members:

•will follow this list of sanctions whether employed on a daily basis, or in an LTO.
Daily occasional teachers:

•will follow the timetable of the teacher who they are replacing
•will not undertake any additional duties including on call/supervision/additional period of teaching unless their current Collective Agreement provides pay for the additional assignment.
Adult day school teachers working in continuing education credit programs will follow this list of strike rules.

Adult day school teachers:

•will only attend at staff, department or professional development meetings/events if their current collective agreement provides they be paid to do so.
Teachers and occasional teachers in a legal strike position WILL NOT:

Meetings

•attend staff meetings
•organize/attend department meetings
•attend Dept. Head Meetings (Dept Heads)
•attend central (board) committee meetings/councils
•conduct co-op visits outside of regular school day hours
Professional development

•attend any Professional Development (PD time offered during school hours will be self-directed PD only)
•create professional development seminars or present at professional development seminars unless it is a part of the teachers’ duties in their role as a coordinator
•attend Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)
•complete Annual Learning Plans
Ministry initiatives

•participate in Framework visits
•participate in any aspect of School Improvement Plans
•complete Ministry reports
•participate in any activities associated with EQAO/OSSLT including administration of the tests
Administrative assistance

•assist with maintenance of school/work-related websites
•distribute Board materials/communications to students On-call coverage/supervision
•'provide coverage for absent administrators • provide on call coverage for absent colleagues
•accept any assignment to supervision in addition to regular classroom duties or in addition to the ongoing, unassigned supervision of student behaviour in hallways, etc., that is performed as a part of a teachers’ professional responsibility
•accept acting VP assignments
Communication

•attend Open House/Information Sessions outside of regular school day
•answer parental e-mails outside of the regular school day
•participate in parent interviews outside of the regular school day
•provide progress reports (written reports beyond those provided at mid-term and end of term)
To be determined by local bargaining units:

Administrative assistance

•will not submit student attendance
•will not assist with administrative tasks during homeroom
•will not distribute course selection materials/option sheets
•will not participate in curriculum/course writing
•will not collect textbooks at the end of the semester/school year
•will not participate in end-of-year school closing activities
Communication

•will not upload marks or comments to Trillium
Other

Members will continue to:

•provide instruction to students
•engage in course preparation and marking
Members may continue to:

•act as an associate teacher/accept teacher candidates
•provide extra help to students

This latest job action should really make the Ontario teachers popular with the parents, students and the rest of Ontarians.

So we have yet another annual publication of the Ontario “Sunshine List” satisfying the “Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act”.  In 1996, then Ontario Premier Mike Harris was targeting public service sector employees and under the guise of transparency he launched his political attack.  He decided to publish the names and salaries of every civil servant earning $100,000 or more a year.  Subsequent Premiers continued this peep show and continued to subject public workers to this humiliating process.

Every year, many members of the public scrutinize this list while wagging their fingers and reinforcing their perception that even more government “fat cats” are feeding from the generous public trough.  I have quickly browsed through the 2011 list of about 80,000 names and do scratch my head at the report of the $million + salaries of some CEO’s of hospitals and other public organizations.  But why include the salary of the nurse (with lots of overtime), the law enforcement officer working many extra hours or the manager who has put in 40 years of service?

I have a problem with this list because;
1.  Mike Harris’s arbitrary benchmark of $100,000 in 1996 is the equivalent of $140,000 to-day.
2.  There are no objective comparisons given between the public service job/salary and the job/salary (plus benefits) in the private sector.
3.  The publication of this list has no social value but leads to the vilification of good people working in the public sector.  It drives a wedge between the public and public servants.  It discourages the friendly cooperation between those receiving public services and those providing them.
4.  It is a cynical political tool used by politicians to obfuscate poor political fiscal and organizational decisions.
5.  With 80,000 names now on the list it has become bloated and pointless where the exorbitant salary gets lumped in with the more realistic incomes.

I see in our area where 19 Norfolk County employees are on the list – there would be only 2 if the post inflation equivalent figure of $140,000 was used instead.  As a taxpayer, do I think that these 19 on our list deserve what we are paying them?  I would have a far better idea if I knew the job description, hrs per week, responsibilities, number of staff to supervise, department budget, years of experience, efficiency rating etc.  I do know that they all competed for the jobs and were chosen because they were considered the best candidates at the time.

How much is an appropriate income?  I do know that on the professional golf tour, every week somebody gets well over $1 million for 4 days work hitting a ball.  Former Premier Harris gets at least $750,000 annually for just his part time work with Magna International.  There are surgeons who prolong and save lives daily who receive in a year what some basketball players get for one week playing during the season.

Enough already!  This "Sunshine List" was a poorly focused political spotlight in 1996 and 16 years later has become a dim bulb under which some people practice public salary voyeurism.  And besides, there are only two people who really deserve more money than how much they are getting – you and me.  And I am not so sure about you.