A teachable moment
Re ‘Support slipping, teachers warned,’ Jan. 15 It’s disappointing that Buzz Hargrove is a Liberal first and a unionist second. Why else would he tell teachers to work for free? I fondly remember extracurricular activities in my high school days but that was a different time, when employers respected their employees, paying people a living wage was common sense and when we all felt some responsibility for the common welfare. That consensus no longer operates.
When Dalton McGuinty rammed Bill 115 down the teachers’ throats rather than negotiating in good faith, he was merely doing what other employers want to do — impose settlements on their employees so they can rake in greater profits. The notion that governments should be role models for civil behaviour is another ideal that has fallen out of use.
If Hargrove and the Liberals think extracurricular activities are important, why don’t they pay teachers to supervise them? Why expect any employee to work for free? When the Liberals broke faith with the teachers, why should the teachers pretend it never happened?
If we as parents and taxpayers want extracurricular activities to resume, we need to mend our relationship with the teachers. Perhaps the new Liberal leader will do that, but until then, asking the teachers to resume working for free is a betrayal of the province’s working people. Gary Dale, West Hill Instead of exercising their self-proclaimed “right” to hold Ontarians hostage every time they feel their entitlements are approaching the chopping block, teachers should consider using hard work and perseverance as a means to hold on to their jobs and advance their careers — like the rest of us.
Should teachers decide to break new anti-strike laws, or continue holding our children hostage with work-to-rule campaigns, why not give some of the young, well-trained and eager-to-work teachers a shot in front of the blackboard?
It would certainly help remind union insiders that a cushy public sector job is a privilege, not a right. Shaughn McArthur, Wakefield, Que. Now is not the time for unions to roll over and play dead. It’s time to bite back. By standing up for workers’ rights and against Bill 115 teacher unions have inflicted considerable damage on the Liberals. Premier McGuinty’s resignation and the back-pedalling by Liberal leadership candidates on Bill 115 are evidence of this. Tim Hudak take notice: antiunion politicians come and go. Unions are still here. Jason Ellis, Toronto
“Tim Hudak take notice: anti-union politicians come and go. Unions are still here.” JASON ELLIS, TORONTO
The beauty and joy of volunteering one’s own time springs from one’s freedom and autonomy to give it. Take away that freedom and you destroy the quality of extracurriculars, assuming you don’t destroy them entirely. Karen Jutzi, North York To equate the horrible human rights abuses around the world to Bill 115 is showing how shallow and low teachers’ arguments have gotten. Bill 115 put teachers in their place and they do not like it. Whining is not a human right.
Scotty Robinson, Toronto Should teachers become free to strike again, it seems only fair that taxpayers should be free to withhold their educational tax money during the strike. Sidney Ledson, educator, Toronto Re Allow bargaining process to run its course, Letter Jan. 13 It is a sad event when Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of OPSEU refers to the government’s imposition of legislation on teachers and support staff as “imposing collective agreements.”
The “collective agreements” are neither collective nor agreements. In fact they are not even contracts, which are agreements between two or more parties. It is time this imposition is called what it really is: a dictate! Wolfhardt Neubert, Scarborough Like the Grand Old Duke of York, Sam Hammond, ETFO leader, marched his troops to the top of the hill, blinked and promptly marched them down again. If confused teachers, left feeling neither up nor down, ever need a classroom example of bluster and bullying behaviour, they can point to their own discredited union president. Desmond McComish, Toronto