Would This Thing Be Over If The BCTF Really Was 'Militant'?

IsThereEnoughPowerInA
FederationVille

A few days ago I took umbrage at the local proMedia herd's use of the term 'militant' to describe our public school teachers.

But what bugs me even more is that you never hear them call the BC Liberal government 'extremist' when it comes to public education.

And yet, Jim Nelson makes a pretty good case that the real problem, in the face of this long-running Campbell/Clark extremism, is that the teachers are not militant enough:

...If a militant union, let’s say the Longshoremen’s Union , was offered zero percent for six years of the last twelve, and in seventy six consecutive “negotiating “ sessions, their employers demanded, at the table and through the media, that they accept zero percent and then accused the union of refusing to bargain, we would see a “militant” union in action.

Now imagine that over twelve years, the Longshoremen’s employer had been repeatedly censured for bargaining in bad faith, by the United Nations, (10 times), the Supreme Court of Canada, (2005) and the Supreme Court of B.C. (twice) Imagine too that the employer blithely ignored every ruling.

The Longshoremen wouldn’t still be “ bargaining”.The docks would close until the outrage was fixed, regardless of the anti union media buzz, back to work legislation, or an uniformed public suspicious that it’s “both sides” or just the “union’s”, fault...

Whatt'ya think.

Does Mr. Nelson have a point?


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Actually, Mr. Nelson makes a number of other points as well...His entire post is well worth the read.



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