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Page 1: Why Teachers Strike

WHY    BC    TEACHERS    STRIKEby  Fred  Subra,  with  signi3icant  help  from  David  Horsey  (and  others*)

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Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

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You  hate  teachers?  That  might  have  to  do  with  the  fact    that  all  you  hear  about  in  the  media  is  how  despicable  we  all  are.

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If  you  care  to  understand  where  we  are  coming  from,      it  is  pertinent  to  look  at  what  has  happened  in  the  US  over  the  last  few  decades,  because  the  current  BC  government  has  

been  pushing  us  in  the  same  direction. !!!!!!!!!!!!

(After  all,  the  US  is  the  greatest  economy  in  the  world,   what  could  possibly  go  wrong?)

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BC  curriculum  is  continually  revised  to  favour  job  skills  over  anything  else—we  are  led  by  people  who  prefer  schools  to  produce  

obedient  workers  rather  than  critically-­thinking  citizens.

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Anything  you  need  to  do  to  enrich  your  intellectual  life,    you  can  pay  for  it  yourself.    

!!!!!!!!!!!!

But  who  can  afford  private  Art  or  Music  classes?    Not  the  middle  class,  if  the  1%  keep  running  the  show.

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BC  teachers  have  opposed    FSA  tests. That’s  because  the  FSA  budget  

could  be  spent  to  actually  help  kids.

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The  business  community  who  manages  this  province  is  obsessed  with  accountability.  They  believe  that  a  good  teacher  is  someone  

who,  out  of  a  class  of  30  students,  should  reliably  produce  30  reading  and  counting  units—FSA  tests  are  designed  to  measure  just  that.      

Our  masters  do  not  want  to  know,  for  instance,  how  much  of  our  time  is  spent  addressing  emotional  and  mental  health  issues.    

Yet  a  kid  whose  parents  are  divorcing  will  not  often  be  able  to  focus  on  trigonometry.  A  16-­year-­old  whose  ex-­girlfriend  is  pregnant  might  

not  assimilate  the  lesson  on  descriptive  paragraph  writing.    A  hungry  child  cannot  memorize  multiplication  tables.    A  bullied  and/or  suicidal  teenager  will  rarely  care  that    

Mrs.  Vandertramp  is  about  knowing  when  to  use  être  instead  of  avoir.      !

FSA  tests  measure  none  of  those  factors,  yet  they  are  used  to  determine  which  schools  are  worth  investing  into.    

BC  Liberal  logic  never  deems  it  wise  to  spend  on  “bad”  teachers’  struggling  students,  it  believes  in  rewarding  success.  So  basically  

money  goes  to  those  places  where  it’s  least  needed.  Therefore  BC  teachers  will  continue  to  oppose  FSA  tests.

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A  problem  we’ve  been  having  is  that  negotiating    with  the  BC  Liberals  looks  exactly  like  this:  

!!!!!!!!!!!!

So,  every  time,  teachers  are  forced  to  go  on  strike.  If  you  think  that’s  fun,  you  need  to  think  again.    Greedy  as  we  are,  we  lose  money  every  time    we  do  our  duty  and  defend  public  education.

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Of  course,  taxes  pay  for  teacher  salaries,  and  that  makes  teachers  repulsive.  

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Feel  the  same  about  the  army?      Let  Stephen  Harper  cut  their  pensions:    

they  only  risked  everything  for  the  rest  of  us    when  they  put  their  lives  on  the  line,  

 believing  their  families  would  be  taken  care  of.    ( )

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Well,  guess  what?      !

Teachers,  like  soldiers,  nurses,  mechanics  or  cooks,    do  pay  taxes.  

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Like  everyone  working  in  BC,  we  deserve  a  salary    that  keeps  up  with  increasing  living  costs.

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Our  corporate  masters  may  not  be  interested    in  building  a  fair  society.  

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Teachers  are.

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If  teachers  gain  a  fair  salary  increase,  it  will  empower  nurses,  police  of_icers,  government  workers—the  whole  working  class—to  negotiate  a  fairer  share  of  the  pie.  

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!

(Not  a  good  thing  if  you’re  a  BC  Liberal.)  !

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(A  quick  word  on  unions:  we’ve  all  heard  horror  stories  on  how  evil  they  can  get  when  they  have  too  much  power.  

!But  please  consider  this:  without  unions  to  bully  them    

on  our  behalf,  corporations  would  still    exploit  children  in  coal  mines  and  factories.

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You  think  I  exaggerate?  !

Just  look  at  the  facts:  wherever  they  can  get  away  with  it,  corporations    

use  sweatshop  labour—in  many  developing  countries    the  work  is  done  by  children.  )

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!

!

Don’t  they  know  that  we  in  the  middle    and  working  classes  are  their  best  customers?  

We simply can’t afford to pay you more in this economy.

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We’ll  buy  those  cell  phones  and  pay  the  crazy  fees.    !

We’ll  buy  their  cars  and  trucks,  we’ll  put  their  gas  in  those  tanks.  (Boy,  do  they  always  have  a  good  reason  to  increase  those  prices!)  

(Notice  how  the  North  American  middle  class  is  only  expected    to  go  from  5.5  to  5.8  trillions?    Look  at  Europe,  look  at  Asia:  

the  plan  is  not  for  things  to  get  any  better  here.)

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HERE  IS  THE  BOTTOM  LINE:  

Money  that  goes  to  the  middle  class  is  money    that  will  get  reinjected  into  the  economy    

and  therefore  create  jobs.  !

Anyone  with  an  offshore  account    is  removing  wealth  from  Canada—then  they  tell  us    we  can’t  afford  to  properly  fund  public  schools.

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According  to  the  BC  Liberals,  we  can’t  afford  to  fund    a  decent  public  school  system  for  the  average  BC  child.  !To  be  fair,  here  is  the  kind  of  institution    where,  whether  or  not  they  get  their  tax  cuts,    their  own  children  are  educated  :

(This  is  a  view  of  the  independent                                                                                St.  George’s  junior  school  in  Vancouver.  

Not  bad,  eh?    

I  wonder  how  many  of  these  kids  need  a  breakfast  program  run  and  paid  for  by  volunteer  teachers,  administrators  and  CUPE  workers,  like  the  one  we  have  in  my  school…  

At  any  rate,  I’m  con_ident  they  score  very  well  on  FSA  tests.)

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Here  is  the  awesome:    BC  “independent”  schools  are  funded,  in  non-­negligible  part,  with  our  tax  dollars.

“Provincial funding for private schools has risen at a much higher rate than it has for the public system. According to B.C. Teachers' Federation estimates based on Ministry of Education numbers for the 2014 budget,

the public system's funding increased by 16.9% between 2005 and today.

The private system's funding increased by 45.6%.”

Crawford Kilian, BC's Private School Boom, TheTyee.ca

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“Teachers revealed their salary demands, asking for an increase comparable to colleagues across Canada and indexed to cost of living. The government said that

would cost over $1 billion.”

!Katie Hyslop,

Updated: Everything You Need to Know about BC Teacher Bargaining,

TheTyee.ca

!“Since the 1970s big tax

cuts at the top have caused after-tax

inequality to rise faster than inequality before

taxes.” !

Paul Krugman, On Inequality Denial,

The New York Times

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If  these  people  cared  about  our  country,  they  would  pay  their  fair  share.    They  earn  indecent  sums,  why  shouldn’t  

they  pay  proportionally  indecent  taxes?  

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But  we  are  at  a  point  where  the  famous  1%  richest  citizens    have  decided  to  stop  paying  for  the  rest  of  us—like  we  weren’t  the  workers  and  consumers  who  made  them  rich  in  the  Jirst  place.

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“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.  “You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.  “Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God

bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Phot

ogra

ph b

y N

igel

Par

ry fo

r Van

ity F

air

US  senator  Elizabeth  Warren,  !

trying  to  explain  why  we  are  NOT    advocating  for  communism,    

but  for  a  more  balanced  capitalism.    This  is  not  about  eliminating  inequality,    it’s  about  keeping  our  society  healthy.

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Why  stop  at  $136,270  and  $150,000?  Billionaires  live  in  this  province!  If  we  taxed  another  (totally  random  numbers)  1%  on  people  earning  1  to  5  million  a  year,  2%  on  people  earning  5.1  to  10  million  a  year,  3%  on  people  earning  10.1  to  30  million  a  year,  

4%  on  anyone  above,  THESE  GUYS  WOULD  STILL  BE  FILTHY  RICH,  

the  difference  would  change  nothing  to  their  lifestyle.

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“On his first day in office 12 years ago Premier Gordon Campbell slashed B.C.'s personal income tax rate across the board by 25 per cent. Campbell also reduced the corporate income tax rate and eliminated the corporate capital tax.” !

Doug Ward, BC Liberals' 12 Years of Tax Shifts, Explained, TheTyee.ca

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No  such  thing  as  a  free  

tax  cut:  here  are  

some  of  the  decisions  inspired  by  the  resulting  

loss  of  revenue.

www.

kids

invic

toria

.com

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Teachers  don’t  believe    the  current  movement  toward  unchecked  inequality  

is  good  for  our  society.

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This  is  what  a  man  who  wants  to  help  his  country  sounds  like.    That,  to  me,  looks  like  “leading  by  example.”

Some  interesting  people  agree  with  us.

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Meanwhile,  the  BC  

Liberals  do  things  like  

this,  then  they  tell  us  we  are  

unreasonable  when  we  beg  for  2  or  3%            a  year.  

!!!!

(Beautiful  smiles,  though.)

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Funny  how  drastically  people’s  ideals  can  shift    once  they  get  in  power.

Are  you  old  enough  to  remember  this  kind  of  talk?

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If  we’re  going  to  talk  about  

accountability,  how  have  the  BC  Liberals  

earned  the  right  to  raise  their  own  

salaries?

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Historically,  Canada  has  always  stood  between  two  social  models.  

In  the  last  12  years,  we’ve  been  rapidly  shifting    toward  one  extreme—can  you  guess  which  one?

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Of  course,  whatever  the  regime,    money  has  always  bought  political  power.

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But  Canada  and  the  US  have  arguably  reached  a  point    where  government  feels  more  like  an  oligarchy    

(a  powerful  few  always  have  their  way)    than  like  a  democracy    

(a  majority  of  people  feel  like  the  state  works  on  their  behalf).

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Only  a  vocal  citizenry  can  reverse  that  trend.

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!“You Teachers keep whining, but the BC liberals were

democratically elected. They are doing what people want, so you need to shut the hell up and take it with a smile.”

Speaking strictly for myself, here is why I can’t do that: ! 1. the government has ILLEGALLY ripped our contracts—the fact that no one cares doesn’t make it peachy, 2. it is a fundamental democratic right to express our views and try to get the citizenry to see our side of the story, 3. the neediest citizens tend not to vote: lack of education, basic belief that no one cares about them so why bother, etc. 4. few people actually want to know what’s going on. Many are just happy to save a few hundred bucks on their taxes, not realizing the cost in lost services (for a lot of folks, a closed or understaffed hospital only matters when unfortunate things happen to people they care about), 5. unfortunate things are happening to people I care about—I work with kids who need extra support, I see colleagues overwhelmed with increasing “special needs” students having to choose every day whether they should slow everyone down or leave those kids behind.

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For  the  record,  I  love  that  some  people  get  to  be  multibillionaires,    it  gives  the  rest  of  us  something  to  dream  about.

The G

reat

Gatsb

y, W

arne

r Bro

s Pict

ures

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But  as  a  democratic  society  we  have  a  moral  obligation  to  give  our  less  fortunate  citizens  the  means  to  improve  their  lives.  !The  fact  is  public  education  plays  a  huge  part  in  fostering  social  justice.  

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To  illustrate  my  points  I  have  used  cartoons  by  David  Horsey,    who  has  chronicled  the  evolution  of    American  society    

for  the  Seattle  Post  Intelligencer  and  the  Los  Angeles  Times,    winning  two  Pulitzer  prizes  in  the  process.  

!(I  hope  this  man  is  disgustingly  wealthy.)

phot

o by N

ancy

LeV

ine

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So  here  is  your  assignment:  do  your  own  thinking.   If  you  feel  the  BC  government  is  doing  a  great  job,

congratulations,  you  get  to  do  nothing. !!!!!!!!!!!!

If  you  believe  they’re  doing  some  damage,   please  consider  using  your  voice.

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P.  S.    As  a  parting  gift,  I  would  like  to  share  a  few  eCards,  just  so  you  can  leave  with  a  smile  on  your  face.

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(I’m  sure  nurses  and  cops  have  those  days,  too.    Soldiers?  Lawyers?  No  way  we’re  the  only  ones.)  

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"The legitimate object of

government is to do for a community of people whatever

they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves — in

their separate and individual

capacities."

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Addendum:  if  you  are  still  with  me,  chances  are  you’ll  be  interested  in  this:

… the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

The model for us rich guys here should be Henry Ford, who realized that all his autoworkers in Michigan weren’t only cheap labor to be exploited; they were consumers, too. Ford figured that if he raised their wages, to a then-exorbitant $5 a day, they’d be able to afford his Model Ts. What a great idea. My suggestion to you is: Let’s do it all over again. We’ve got to try something. These idiotic trickle-down policies are destroying my customer base. And yours too.

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The thing about us businesspeople is that we love our customers rich and our employees poor. So for as long as there has been capitalism, capitalists have said the same thing about any effort to raise wages. We’ve had 75 years of complaints from big business—when the minimum wage was instituted, when women had to be paid equitable amounts, when child labor laws were created. Every time the capitalists said exactly the same thing in the same way: We’re all going to go bankrupt. I’ll have to close. I’ll have to lay everyone off. It hasn’t happened. In fact, the data show that when workers are better treated, business gets better. The naysayers are just wrong.

We rich people have been falsely persuaded by our schooling and the affirmation of society, and have convinced ourselves, that we are the main job creators. It’s simply not true. There can never be enough super-rich Americans to power a great economy. I earn about 1,000 times the median American annually, but I don’t buy thousands of times more stuff. My family purchased three cars over the past few years, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. I bought two pairs of the fancy wool pants I am wearing as I write, what my partner Mike calls my “manager pants.” I guess I could have bought 1,000 pairs. But why would I? Instead, I sock my extra money away in savings, where it doesn’t do the country much good. So forget all that rhetoric about how America is great because of people like you and me and Steve Jobs. You know the truth even if you won’t admit it: If any of us had been born in Somalia or the Congo, all we’d be is some guy standing barefoot next to a dirt road selling fruit. It’s not that Somalia and Congo don’t have good entrepreneurs. It’s just that the best ones are selling their wares off crates by the side of the road because that’s all their customers can afford.

Dear 1%ers, many of our fellow citizens are starting to believe that capitalism itself is the problem. I disagree, and I’m sure you do too. Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. But capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse. It can be managed either to benefit the few in the near term or the many in the long term. The work of democracies is to bend it to the latter. That is why investments in the middle class work. And tax breaks for rich people like us don’t. Balancing the power of workers and billionaires by raising the minimum wage isn’t bad for capitalism. It’s an indispensable tool smart capitalists use to make capitalism stable and sustainable. And no one has a bigger stake in that than zillionaires like us.

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*Sourceshttp://thetyee.ca/News/2013/05/06/BC-Liberals-Tax-Shifts/

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/02/27/BC-Tax-Cut-Era/ http://www.the-peak.ca/2014/05/province-shifts-funding-from-liberal-arts-to-trades-training/ http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/should-canadian-millionaires-pay-more-taxes-1.1106636

http://www.ufcw.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3377:inequality-on-the-rise-canadas-richest-canadians-richer-than-ever&catid=83:infographics&Itemid=393&lang=en

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/lifestyle/map-where-canadas-richest-people-live/ http://www.socialworkdegreecenter.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour

http://www.kiplinger.com/article/business/T019-C021-S001-middle-class-spenders-will-lead-global-growth.html http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/04/03/massive-offshore-tax-haven-account-leak-includes-names-of-450-wealthy-canadians/

http://samuel-warde.com/2014/07/elizabeth-warren-2011-campaign-trail/ http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-day/02/07/whats-wrong-with-tax-loopholes-visualized/

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Christy+Clark+boosts+maximum+salaries+aides+cent/8510982/story.html?__federated=1

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2011/08/31/teacher-unemployed-time-to-head-to-wisconsin/ http://www.motifake.com/its-nice-demotivational-posters-49336.html

http://ows.edb.utexas.edu/site/its-more-just-economic-crisis/jimmy-carter-1977-1981-and-ronald-reagan-1981-1989 http://topinfopost.com/2014/06/30/ultra-rich-mans-letter-to-my-fellow-filthy-rich-americans-the-pitchforks-are-

coming

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To  be  continued

F. Subra, June 2014

Think of societies that don’t (didn’t) have decent public schools. Oh, I don’t know... Ancient Egypt? Europe in the 17th century? Most of Africa today? You will observe societies that function pretty well:

rulers rule, workers work, business people make money. Some are filthy rich, most are dirt poor.

What you won’t find, EVER : social justice and freedom. It takes democracies to achieve that. It takes educated people to elect educated leaders who will run the country for the common good

instead of their own personal interests. That is teachers’ contribution to society:

helping people learn to use their brain and, in the long run, Keeping Us All Out Of The Dark Ages.

(Ta-daaa!) So yeah, we take this stuff pretty seriously.


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