Industrial Action

comelately

Wild Horses
those comments were made either by teachers, or long time posters.

Sorry, I'm all confus-ed. Which comments?

you said:

"But I honestly think there's a sizeable minority of teachers are on a fairly easy ride, and are in the profession mainly for that reason."

which in my experience of seeing other teachers, is clearly rubbish. i however am an idle failure and am a teacher for that very reason. i'll be off at 3.00 today. btw.

Fair enough. Maybe my experience was a bad one, but nonetheless contained hearing more than one teacher go into a tirade about all the "lazy bastards round here". And although I met some very good and very hard-working teachers when I performed classroom observation 2/3 years back, I did get to observe a few who were clearly a bit shit, quite lazy and obviously not particualrly motivated - though I don't know the circumstances that brought them to that point I grant you.

I probably should have said "remain in the profession" rather than "are in the profession" for that reason - I don't doubt many a mediocre teacher was once a highly motivated potential lifechanger that got it all sucked out of them by classroom preparation and writing out behaviour incident reports which will be ignored when the child promises to behave for the 174th time. Things are pretty messed up in a lot of places, I wonder if it might not be better in the long-run for more teachers to simply let go and stop caring.

I've looked at the comments on CiF from teachers and mostly my suspiscions have been confirmed. You have young teachers going on about their student loans, the price of housing and how they'd be earning more if they had gone into a top graduate scheme. But most NQTs would never have bagged a place on one of those schemes, and many graduates infact take jobs at much lower pay than that received by a NQT (who I do concede has went through a year of training on a bursary which represents less money than they would earn working in an office). The problems that young teachers face are the problems most young people without very rich and generous parents face.

Obviously, the gap between what a teacher can earn and what can be earnt in other sectors has increased significantly and combined with the increase in house prices, top graduates are going to be much less likely to choose teaching as a career. And given the high % of Oxbridge graduates that used to go on to teach, I don't deny that this may have a significant impact on standards. But a few extra grand isn't going to be the difference maker there and teachers earlier in their careers will get pay rises through scale. I agree that teachers who are not subject to scale increases should not face an effective paycut.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
surprise transit strike

TORONTO — A visibly angry David Miller said he has secured an agreement with the province to bring in back-to-work legislation as soon as possible after thousands of transit riders found themselves stranded Saturday morning when TTC workers went out on strike.

Subways, streetcars and buses ground to a halt at midnight.
 

nomos

Administrator
Another reason he doesn't like the strike: “I might have to cancel a date on Saturday. That would suck. I don't get many of those.”

i can't think of many public sector strikes in recent canadian history that weren't ended or preempted by back to work legislation. not much point in letting people unionize then is there? and i hate how the news reports inevitably give centre stage to some selfish everyman complaining about personal inconvenience and strikers' lack of compassion.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
i can't think of many public sector strikes in recent canadian history that weren't ended or preempted by back to work legislation. not much point in letting people unionize then is there? and i hate how the news reports inevitably give centre stage to some selfish everyman complaining about personal inconvenience and strikers' lack of compassion.

what is back to work legislation exactly?
 

nomos

Administrator
a union legally votes to strike, legally goes on strike, and the federal or relevant provincial government passes legislation ordering the union back to work under penalty of fines and jail time.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Having said that, public sector workers sometimes seem to think that the world revolves around them. Can the government afford to increase pay in line with inflation? Will it have to reappropriate funds from other needy projects to do so? Will it have to increase its debt?
They could increase income tax. The basic reason for not doing so being that it's politically less unpopular to make public sector workers (who can't do much about it) significantly poorer than to make everone very slightly poorer...
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
a union legally votes to strike, legally goes on strike, and the federal or relevant provincial government passes legislation ordering the union back to work under penalty of fines and jail time.



So they're simmply ordered back, no independent arbitration, just back to work or off to jail?

And this is the norm in Canada? Sheesh, it sounds almost.... American :eek:
 
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nomos

Administrator
yeah pretty much. case in point...

"Toronto transit to be back on track by evening after back-to-work bill passes"
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/04/27/ttc-strikesun.html

The bill imposes mediation and then arbitration on any issues that are still outstanding between the TTC and its union — and if the two sides cannot agree on a mediator-abitrator within five days, the government will appoint one.

...but with the ability to strike removed, the leverage would seem to go out the window
 

ripley

Well-known member
Could the transit workers (the ones who work the doors/gates) let everyone on for free? it worked better when it was not mostly automated, but i read about bus drivers striking that way and it sounded interesting.

Wish I could remember where I read it, but i thought it was in the UK somewhere.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"a union legally votes to strike, legally goes on strike, and the federal or relevant provincial government passes legislation ordering the union back to work under penalty of fines and jail time."
Blimey, I've never heard that before. Can that happen in any industry or is it only public sector or what? Seems as though it's only one step from making striking illegal.
 

ripley

Well-known member
Blimey, I've never heard that before. Can that happen in any industry or is it only public sector or what? Seems as though it's only one step from making striking illegal.

in the US it's also limited by law pretty severely since 1947 with the Taft-Hartley Act which gutted most of the power of US unions, especially that strikes are prohibited from being about anything except specific issues w/r/t collective bargaining (i.e. not political, and not boycott-related)

My dockworker friend said about it that it "set in stone the main outlines of the postwar, Cold War-era "social compact:" labor would save job action for "pork chop" issues, confine its political action to endorsing candidates, impose a "loyalty" test on union leaders (which led to the expulsion of the Left-led unions from the CIO in 1949) and become a partner in the worldwide struggle against Communism."

I don't think it's an accident that the major unions, in exchange for gettin cozy with management, also sold out their weaker members and prospective members and mostly fought against including women and people of color. For some reason, the communist and syndicalist unions were generally more open to both, practically and ideologically.

Anyway, the ILWU strike today is one of the first I've heard of that has risked violating Taft-Hartley, by having an explicitly political rationale.
 

nomos

Administrator
Could the transit workers (the ones who work the doors/gates) let everyone on for free? it worked better when it was not mostly automated, but i read about bus drivers striking that way and it sounded interesting.

Wish I could remember where I read it, but i thought it was in the UK somewhere.

That would be great. I think that happened informally in town here once a couple of years back for one day only. I suppose it could potentially inspire a lockout though, which would inevitably be blamed on the union's disregard for order and the public good.

On the teaching front, working at/attending a university that goes through regular labour crises, I've found it really depressing how, by and large, undergrads instinctively side with the administration rather than the the profs or support staff who they deal with every day. Since the mid-90s postsecondary education has been recast by government as just another sector of the service industry and a lot of students treat as such. Whether it's about a strike or a bad mark, it's increasingly common to run into this consumerist indignation in the form of "I paid for a service and you're withholding it."
 
On the teaching front, working at/attending a university that goes through regular labour crises, I've found it really depressing how, by and large, undergrads instinctively side with the administration rather than the the profs or support staff who they deal with every day. Since the mid-90s postsecondary education has been recast by government as just another sector of the service industry and a lot of students treat as such. Whether it's about a strike or a bad mark, it's increasingly common to run into this consumerist indignation in the form of "I paid for a service and you're withholding it."

It IS depressing, you are right, but 100% to be expected because the education industry IS now a consumer industry. You pay lots of money for a piece of paper that is supposed to help you get a higher-paid job later. That is ALL it is now. Nobody gets a grant, very few people can afford to be there for the love of knowledge. Seeing as the students are paying money to get educated and pay the wages of the staff, why wouldn't they be indignant if the staff don't turn up to deliver the education they have paid for?

By the way, I don't think this is the way it should be but you can't expect the students to change their point of view unless lots of other things change like making education free, and aiming education towards actual learning, increase of knowledge, rather than getting skills for jobs or certificates.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Seeing as the students are paying money to get educated and pay the wages of the staff, why wouldn't they be indignant if the staff don't turn up to deliver the education they have paid for?"
I'm sure that in some cases that is the mentality. And from that viewpoint, if the student fails to get the grade they (feel they) paid for then they think that they have been cheated and ought to have legal recourse.
 

vimothy

yurp
It IS depressing, you are right, but 100% to be expected because the education industry IS now a consumer industry. You pay lots of money for a piece of paper that is supposed to help you get a higher-paid job later. That is ALL it is now. Nobody gets a grant, very few people can afford to be there for the love of knowledge. Seeing as the students are paying money to get educated and pay the wages of the staff, why wouldn't they be indignant if the staff don't turn up to deliver the education they have paid for?

I think you're exaggerating here.

When you enroll on an undergraduate degree, as a first time student, you pay less than half of the cost of the programme, the difference being made up by your LEA. The actual costs of undergrad HE programmes are only paid by international students.

Plenty of students get grants, bursuries, loans and all sorts. The government has even recently ruled, as part of the Widening Participation (WP) initiative, to redistribute millions of pounds of funding away from prospective students with equivalent or lower qualifications (ELQs) to first time students. Universities publish how they spend this money: it goes on bursaries, loans and the like to students who qualify according to WP criterea (i.e. are "poor and needy").

The reason that people want to go to university, and one of the reasons that the government wants people to go to university, is that people who go to university can expect to earn more, on average, than people who do not. Of course, it's fine if you want to go to university to toss it off, take pills and listen to "minimal" for three years. However, if you're starting out without much money, it might not be a such a bad thing to go to university with a career in mind. You know -- so you don't waste the money. You might even find -- shock horror -- that you can go for the love of learning and to further your career goals at the same time. It's not unheard of for people to want to move into a certain career because they are interested in it, not just because they are greedy (just ask the teachers round here)!

aiming education towards actual learning, increase of knowledge, rather than getting skills for jobs or certificates.

Yeah -- imagine going to university to try to get a better job. How middle class!
 
The reason that people want to go to university, and one of the reasons that the government wants people to go to university, is that people who go to university can expect to earn more, on average, than people who do not

Well I guess you and I differ on what education should be for and about.

Yeah -- imagine going to university to try to get a better job. How middle class!

I don't understand, what's class got to do with it?

I understand the desire to get money to have a comfortable life.

But I think we differ in that I don't believe money is the root of all happiness or necessarily the best yardstick of success in every field, and education and learning should have other goals besides financial gain.

My original post was directed at Nomos who was upset to see students siding more with administration against striking lecturers than the other way round.
I wanted to say that if you make people pay for education, if you make it a business, then customers are going to demand a businesslike attitude from the staff there in terms of them turning up to work etc.

I was suggesting that if Nomos wants to see students sympathising with underpaid staff, it would be good for them to be taught the value of caring about others in society, the idea of education for all as being good for individuals and society regardless of whether it is vocational.

I want people to see education as a great experience and chance to learn about interesting stuff instead of an expensive period of drudgery that is necessary in order to increase future earnings.

Instead we teach them that only those who can pay will get an education and that will allow you to go and work and get more money to buy stuff and who gives a fuck if the teachers and lecturers are struggling, they should go and get a better job. Getting money to buy stuff is the only thing worth aspiring to.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I didn't get on with education, I was bright, I always wanted to know why and how, whereas the teachers always said "you don't need that to pass the exam". eg. differentiating a function in maths, you can easily learn to just plug the right numbers into a formula but why does it work and what does it mean? you don't need to know that for a-level maths as long as you get the answer.

I think we should be teaching people to think and be curious, rather than teaching them to learn only what they need for the exam, get the certificate, go into the workplace and be good little drones.

It's all very well for providing the workers and shoppers that successful capitalists need to keep making them money but it is leading to the intellectual death of the country.

Anyway all this is probably stuff for another thread like "what is education for" or something....
 

vimothy

yurp
Well I guess you and I differ on what education should be for and about.

I'm not sure if that's true -- maybe.

I don't understand, what's class got to do with it?

It doesn't need to have anything to do with it, but if you want to look at education in terms of cliches, in terms of people who go for the "love of money" (i.e. who want to better their situation), and people who go for the "love of knowledge" (i.e. who don't need to better their situation), then...

I understand the desire to get money to have a comfortable life.

But I think we differ in that I don't believe money is the root of all happiness or necessarily the best yardstick of success in every field, and education and learning should have other goals besides financial gain.

Exactly the false dichotomy I was arguing against! Money is merely an intermediary: not an end in itself even in classical economic theory, and it certainly shouldn't be the basis of a personal philosophy. People go to university for all sorts of reasons, but to split them into two camps -- pure lovers of knowledge on the one hand and rote learners for financial gain on the other -- is to completely miss why HE is important. It is precisely the conflation of both aspects that provides the most optimal social welfare outcomes, and holds the most potential for you the individual.

If you want to break the links between stuff like parental income and children's income, then focusing on the exchange value of qualifications is no bad thing. Plenty of students enroll at university for the love of knowledge. They do stuff like philosophy, media studies or english lit. I did. It's not necessarily better or worse, it's just a different choice. However, if you want your (expensive) qualification to work for you, then why the hell wouldn't you pick something that will pay well?

I wanted to say that if you make people pay for education, if you make it a business, then customers are going to demand a businesslike attitude from the staff there in terms of them turning up to work etc.

Not a bad thing, I'd say. If you are paying for education -- and we are, whether it's you personally in fees or you generally in taxes -- then I think you have the right to expect to be taught, just as you have the right to expect to be seen by a doctor.

I want people to see education as a great experience and chance to learn about interesting stuff instead of an expensive period of drudgery that is necessary in order to increase future earnings.

Can't you have a great experience, learn and get a qualification that will increase future earnings? Why is it one or the other? If you can't get a qualification that will increase future earnings, meaning that your qualification is not in demand in society, is there any point to it beyond your own mental masturbation? Not to put to fine a point on it, but what social needs were served by funding my own jaunt through education to learn about Marlowe and James Joyce? They pretty much never come up, even in conversation.

Instead we teach them that only those who can pay will get an education and that will allow you to go and work and get more money to buy stuff and who gives a fuck if the teachers and lecturers are struggling, they should go and get a better job. Getting money to buy stuff is the only thing worth aspiring to.

Not true, as I've explained.
 

vimothy

yurp
I didn't get on with education, I was bright, I always wanted to know why and how, whereas the teachers always said "you don't need that to pass the exam". eg. differentiating a function in maths, you can easily learn to just plug the right numbers into a formula but why does it work and what does it mean? you don't need to know that for a-level maths as long as you get the answer.

Actually literally the subject (A level maths pedagogy) of the research project I work for....

EDIT: Preliminary findings basically that "teaching to the exam" & heavily transmissionist pedagogy is a function of the standardisation and league-table regime brought in by Nu Lab to justify inreased education spending. Ironic, perhaps, but not very funny for the students or for the universities who have to teach basic maths to, e.g., physics students, because they have no understanding beyond reciting formulas.
 
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Not a bad thing, I'd say. If you are paying for education -- and we are, whether it's you personally in fees or you generally in taxes -- then I think you have the right to expect to be taught, just as you have the right to expect to be seen by a doctor.

Well yes, but I was responding to Nomos' complaint that he wished the students would support striking teachers and explained why it was unlikely to come about under the present system.

It is precisely the conflation of both aspects that provides the most optimal social welfare outcomes, and holds the most potential for you the individual.

Hmm, I'm not sure about this. I get a feeling it's a point of ideology for you but what's the evidence for it?

Actually literally the subject (A level maths pedagogy) of the research project I work for....

EDIT: Preliminary findings basically that "teaching to the exam" & heavily transmissionist pedagogy is a function of the standardisation and league-table regime brought in by Nu Lab to justify inreased education spending. Ironic, perhaps, but not very funny for the students or for the universities who have to teach basic maths to, e.g., physics students, because they have no understanding beyond reciting formulas.

I'd love to hear what you find out. I have to point out that I was taught "to the exam" for my A-levels years before New Labour existed, Neil Kinnock was in charge of Labour at the time and a Conservative govt. had been in power during most of my education. It was the same for A-level physics, they actually gave you a piece of paper in the exam with all the formulae so you didn't even have to remember them, much less understand them - just pick the right one for the job and plug in the numbers. So as well as teaching basic maths to physics undergrads, I'd imagine they have to teach basic physics as well.
 
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