Several teaching unions, for 20 years, have designed advertisements to “revalue public schools”. Commendable gesture.
But if these campaigns had any effect, it has undoubtedly been erased in recent weeks.
The record FAE strike, with the extreme dramatization of school problems typical of union rhetoric, could be considered the greatest private school promotion campaign ever seen.
Other ways?
It seems that union members are working in secret to make the private sector ever more attractive.
In the coming days, those of the nine affiliated unions of the FAE will in all likelihood reject the “agreement in principle” reached with the government. However, this gives them good salary increases. In any case, better than those to which the vast majority of taxpayers can aspire.
- Listen to the political meeting between Antoine Robitaille and Benoît Dutrizac via QUB :
Fortunately, rejection is unlikely to mean a return to strike action. But there would be, we are told, “means of pressure”. Again… Another great ad for the private school!
When my children were in primary school, the unions, as a “means of pressure”, boycotted cultural outings. It lasted three years! Three years without trips to the museum, theater or concert, etc. Sad, right? Wouldn’t there be other ways than penalizing students like this?
Contempt
Being a teacher is not easy, they insist. We understand.
One student with an “intervention plan” should be worth two. Especially since there are more and more of them. (Perhaps we also label certain children too easily? But that’s another debate.) In other words, according to the unions, it was necessary to review, in the collective agreements, the composition of the class, to lower the student ratios teachers, encourage the creation of special classes.
Most Quebecers understand and have, until now, supported the teachers’ demands. However, the draft agreements do not constitute the revolution dreamed of by teachers, in terms of class composition. For a very simple reason: there is a shortage of teachers.
The agreements, however, contain certain solutions, money. Classroom aids. These solutions are described as expedients by many union members, who even see them as “contempt of the management side”.
By reacting in this way, teachers risk losing the moral support of taxpayers. The best is the enemy of good. It was utopian to think of resolving all school problems through collective agreements.
- Listen to the political meeting between Antoine Robitaille and Benoît Dutrizac via QUB :
Salary
Even salary increases do not seem to console union members. One of them writes to me to tell me that remuneration will progress too slowly “for the middle levels. But that’s where we lose our staff.”
Interesting point. All the same, the teacher can hope, at the top of the scale, after 13 years, to earn $109,121 per year. If Québec solidaire were in power, it would be taxed as ultra-rich!
Money isn’t everything, they tell me. Working conditions matter even more. They are certainly difficult, but by trying to make them perfect through conventions, teachers undermine the reputation of public schools. There must certainly be other solutions.