I have a great deal of respect for teachers. They provide an essential service educating our children and they should be well compensated for it and they are.
They get a good salary for what they do (working 10 months a year) and receive sick leave and other benefits that most working people in this province will never have. Anyone that looks at their property tax bill knows a good chunk of it goes toward education.
The fact is, any new collective agreement will result in relative increases to municipal tax bills. Any teacher that takes part in a rotating strike and thinks their pay won’t be affected is not living in the real world.
In the world that most of us live in, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid, period. And now, in the final month of this school year they start rotating strikes? Why now? Because students are close to finishing for the year and they are now being held hostage by the teachers’ union as a negotiating tool to get a new contract. They should be legislated back to work and the dispute sent to binding arbitration.
John Alexander
Coombs