Ontario Teachers Potential Strike

Moonbox · December 12, 2014

I'm just interested in finding out what's real. I have information from 3 teachers + 1 post in this thread.

Right, so asking someone how hard they work in a public sector profession was a great way to get unbiased and objective information?

Yes, just as teachers aren't paid overtime. And they work on the weekend, on the couch or in the den...

but a teacher's negotiated hours are only 6-6.5 hours a day and they only work 75% of the year, whereas the private sector employee spends 7.5-8 hours at the office and works 95% of the year.

You can't say that it's an exaggeration unless you know for sure. It may be real.

I can say, because I've seen it first hand, just as you have.

Well, I live with a teacher so I can see it.

which finally reveals your angle and skin in the game. For the record, I lived with a teacher for three years and the during her time at teacher's college. When she was 'marking', she was watching television and marking during commercials, chatting with the rest of us throughout. By the time she was done, 2-3 hours would have gone by and as far as she was concerned she'd been 'working' the entire time.

Well, I was responding to a comparison of private sector hours vs teacher hours.

Understood, but it wasn't an apple to apples comparison when you account for a teacher's vacation.

No. The G&M study said that the overall average was 45% (I think) and that lower salary employees work overtime more often. That means that well-paid professional jobs that are NOT teachers work much less.

No the G&M said 2/3 of Canadians self-report working more than 45 hours a week and surmised that the work/life balance of lower-income families is worse. This does NOT mean well-paid professionals work less. I can understand why you might suggest that, but it's a non-sequitur. A well-paid professional can afford to run a household on his/her own, therefore the spouse doesn't have to be at work or worry as much.

You also cited an HRDC analysis with StatsCAN figures, and that along with the G&M article gives us a pretty clear indication that 40-45 hour work weeks average. For a teacher to even match that they need to be doing another 10-15 hours of marking/planning/EC every week, and when you add the extra 9-10 weeks of vacation you need to add another ~10 hours. This means that the average teacher needs to doing at least 50 hour work weeks to even compare how much they work to a full-time private sector employee. Most of this time, as we have discussed, is spent at home. There is a reason most employers require their people to work on-site for 8 hours a day and why most employees would prefer to work from home.

Moonbox · December 12, 2014

Kathleen understands that cuts to public education will lead to higher future debt. Some of you can't see things beyond one day.

except that's more self-confirming drivel that makes literally no sense whatsoever and requires you to make a large number of logical leaps that conflict with one another. Like I said, you're not doing your profession any favors.

socialist · December 13, 2014

except that's more self-confirming drivel that makes literally no sense whatsoever and requires you to make a large number of logical leaps that conflict with one another. Like I said, you're not doing your profession any favors.

You can't seem to grasp the obvious. Cut back on education and the education of young learners will suffer, which may cause them to be ill prepared for the work force, not to mention will decrease their understanding of what it takes to be a good global citizen.

Like I said, you only see what is one inch in front of your nose. I see the bi picture. Cut back on public education and watch society suffer. Your anecdotal note of your girlfriend seems made up to me, and is thus, material for the garbage can.

Moonbox · December 13, 2014

You can't seem to grasp the obvious. Cut back on education and the education of young learners will suffer, which may cause them to be ill prepared for the work force, not to mention will decrease their understanding of what it takes to be a good global citizen.

that's because it's not obvious, and your reasoning skills are embarrassingly bad. I never said anything about cutting back on education. I said teachers are overpaid and if we spent less on each teacher we could hire more of them, thus reducing class sizes and likely IMPROVING education.

Like I said, you only see what is one inch in front of your nose. I see the bi picture. Cut back on public education and watch society suffer.

You're embarrassing your profession every time you open your mouth. We're supposed to believe YOU see the big picture!? This is the same guy who tried to make up for wounded pride by trying to ridicule me for using the term "teacher" instead of "educator", while he'd been using it himself all along! We're supposed to believe that we should pay YOU more so that YOU can better educate our children!? I've never laughed and vomited at the same time, but I think I might here.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Moonbox

socialist · December 13, 2014

that's because it's not obvious, and your reasoning skills are embarrassingly bad. I never said anything about cutting back on education. I said teachers are overpaid and if we spent less on each teacher we could hire more of them, thus reducing class sizes and likely IMPROVING education.

You're embarrassing your profession every time you open your mouth. We're supposed to believe YOU see the big picture!? This is the same guy who tried to make up for wounded pride by trying to ridicule me for using the term "teacher" instead of "educator", while he'd been using it himself all along! We're supposed to believe that we should pay YOU more so that YOU can better educate our children!? I've never laughed and vomited at the same time, but I think I might here.

Educators will be paid more after earning their Masters degree. Better qualified educators (Masters degrees) will improve the system tremendously.

WestCoastRunner · December 13, 2014

that's because it's not obvious, and your reasoning skills are embarrassingly bad. I never said anything about cutting back on education. I said teachers are overpaid and if we spent less on each teacher we could hire more of them, thus reducing class sizes and likely IMPROVING education.

You're embarrassing your profession every time you open your mouth. We're supposed to believe YOU see the big picture!? This is the same guy who tried to make up for wounded pride by trying to ridicule me for using the term "teacher" instead of "educator", while he'd been using it himself all along! We're supposed to believe that we should pay YOU more so that YOU can better educate our children!? I've never laughed and vomited at the same time, but I think I might here.

You are embarrassing yourself by attacking the poster and not listening to the arguments. You seem bent on attacking the poster and teachers in general. Do you seriously think that socialist is educating all our children and that socialist speaks for all teachers. Why not listen to some of the thoughts being brought forward.

Unfortunately, socialist has been targeted for 'trolling' while at the same time, bringing up good thoughts on our education system in Canada. It's too bad that some posters can't get past that.

Ash74 · December 13, 2014

Kathleen understands that cuts to public education will lead to higher future debt. Some of you can't see things beyond one day.

Yes but it is the Wynne government that is getting ready for a teacher contract dispute.

Yes she is very pro education and really don't have a problem with that I issue with her is her complete lack of ability to run things efficiently.

Health care and education are the two most important aspects of her job.

My lack of faith in her is the ability to ensure that the money will go into the classrooms and not sweet deals for the administrators and unions.

Too much money has been wasted on keeping the union happy and not going to the front line workers or the students themselves.

Moonbox · December 13, 2014

Educators will be paid more after earning their Masters degree. Better qualified educators (Masters degrees) will improve the system tremendously.

It's the Masters Degree that makes them more qualified and likely better teachers, not the higher pay. The vast majority of teachers also don't have one.

Moonbox · December 13, 2014

Do you seriously think that socialist is educating all our children and that socialist speaks for all teachers.

What do you think, really? Are you typing just for the sake of saying something?

Unfortunately, socialist has been targeted for 'trolling' while at the same time, bringing up good thoughts on our education system in Canada. It's too bad that some posters can't get past that.

socialist is getting mocked because of his poor reasoning skills and because he's been quoted saying some REALLY stupid stuff. He's also incredibly, unashamedly biased on the topic (even for a teacher) and appears to be oblivious to that fact. Your defense of him is noted and I'm sure appreciates it, but you actually didn't say anything worthwhile. You disagree with me and you agree with him. Thanks for letting us know!

Michael Hardner · December 13, 2014

Right, so asking someone how hard they work in a public sector profession was a great way to get unbiased and objective information?

Well, I think that the other surveys of workers rely on self-reporting too, to be honest. Your sentence implies that public sector people are somehow particularly unable to be objective.

Let's get past this, then. We have three posters posting anecdotal information, and you don't accept two of them. Fair enough, as you don't have to. I will Google for some objective info now... and try to put together an objective case...

https://www.oct.ca/-/media/PDF/Transition%20to%20Teaching%202012/T2T%20Main%20Report_EN_web_accessible0313.pdf

That indicates that 33% of new teachers volunteer about 10 hours per week.

And... Stats Canada:

Average work week - 36.6 hours:

http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/[email protected]?iid=19

Teachers put in about 7.6 hours of overtime per week - a lot less than I was arguing above:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/2006004/9540-eng.htm

This means that teachers work between 39 or 40 weeks a year, working 7.6 hours overtime per week and using the number 39 brings that to 296.4 extra hours for those weeks. 11 weeks for the average worker is about 400 hours.

That means that the average worker works up to 50-100 hours a year more. It's a broad comparison and throws together every profession in Canada, salary and hours workers, and ignores the question of working at home, of volunteering and whether people are *supposed* to work more, the difficulty of different professions, what constitutes the 'average'... and so on.

So I stand corrected, and now you can thank me for doing the research for you. It took me about half an hour but I'm glad I know this now.

No the G&M said 2/3 of Canadians self-report working more than 45 hours a week and surmised that the work/life balance of lower-income families is worse. This does NOT mean well-paid professionals work less. I can understand why you might suggest that, but it's a non-sequitur. A well-paid professional can afford to run a household on his/her own, therefore the spouse doesn't have to be at work or worry as much.

I re-read it:

"The study found that the less-affluent the family, the more likely it was to feel burdened by excess workloads,"

So, yes, I misread the information in that.

Edited to add:

I ran these numbers by a teacher, and they added more to the discussion. "Overtime" would mean outside in-school time, which is only 6.5 hours per day... bringing the "overtime" per week number down to 3.5 hours per week. The overall teacher overtime number over the year would be closer to 140 hours than 200. However, also, I used a figure of 50 weeks' work for non-teachers which is way wrong. 48 weeks is the basic amount of work, given two weeks of annual vacation and two weeks of stat holidays a year. But this says that annual vacation time is more like 19 days a year, not 10:

http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=4e1aaeb7-291b-476b-a4a4-8a7e559bbc2a

That means that the non-teacher works about 7 weeks more than the teacher, which at 36.6 hours is about 250 hours. It still comes out to about 100 hours... give or take. Teachers work more than 39 weeks this year in Ontario anyway, for example.

Moonbox · December 13, 2014

Michael thank you for looking into those numbers, but I wanted to clarify. A teacher in Ontario is obligated to spend 32.5 hours a week in the classroom. If they're putting 7.6 hours of extra work per week in, that means they're working a 40 hour week now for ~39 weeks per year. If a teacher is working for 40 hours per week, then their work year is 1560 hours.

The average Canadian can expect maybe 3 weeks of holidays and works 49 weeks per year. Stat holidays are uniform and so can be ignored. If the average Canadian works 36.6 hours per year for 49 weeks then a 1793 hr work year is average, meaning teachers work 233 hours/year less. Unfortunately, the StatsCan data isn't presenting the apples-to-apples information we need. Included in the 36.6 average are all the people working part-time and under 30 hours per week (particularly young people) which skews the national average to the teacher's favor, likely by a fair margin.

Suppose even that the average full-time non-seasonal worker in Canada works 40 hrs/week, which is a pretty conservative assumption. In this case, teachers are working 400 hours less than the average Canadian, or fully ten weeks less. Combine this with their above average pay (for their level of education AND by international averages for educators according to the OECD). http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/teacher-pay-canada-near-the-top-of-the-oecd-class/article4541629/

The argument for and by teachers about their woeful job conditions are unfortunately not confirmed by the numbers.

Michael Hardner · December 13, 2014

Michael thank you for looking into those numbers, but I wanted to clarify. A teacher in Ontario is obligated to spend 32.5 hours a week in the classroom. If they're putting 7.6 hours of extra work per week in, that means they're working a 40 hour week now for ~39 weeks per year. If a teacher is working for 40 hours per week, then their work year is 1560 hours.

The average Canadian can expect maybe 3 weeks of holidays and works 49 weeks per year. Stat holidays are uniform and so can be ignored.

Yes, I took all of that into account. Stat holidays can't be ignored, though, as that's two weeks.

I think the number in question is for full time, so we're not close on the number but we're closer than before.

The argument for and by teachers about their woeful job conditions are unfortunately not confirmed by the numbers.

Job conditions ? That's a different question. But for hours, I agree with you that it's not 50 hours X 40 weeks.

Moonbox · December 15, 2014

Yes, I took all of that into account. Stat holidays can't be ignored, though, as that's two weeks.

The teachers are getting all of the stat holidays as well, so by not ignoring them you would also have to subtract their stat holidays from their annual total (at least the ones that don't fall on xmas/summer holidays). This makes a whole week's worth of difference for the comparison.

I think the number in question is for full time, so we're not close on the number but we're closer than before.

The 36.6 hours from HRDC/Statscan was including part-time workers, or at least people who worked less than 30 hours a week.

Job conditions ? That's a different question. But for hours, I agree with you that it's not 50 hours X 40 weeks.

I meant the claims about them being overwhelmed and working so much harder than everyone else (their go-to when people point out their unmatched vacation time when their compensation packages are questioned). The numbers we have would suggest they work significantly less.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Moonbox

Michael Hardner · December 15, 2014

The teachers are getting all of the stat holidays as well, so by not ignoring them you would also have to subtract their stat holidays from their annual total (at least the ones that don't fall on xmas/summer holidays). This makes a whole week's worth of difference for the comparison.

The teacher number already takes stat holidays into effect, as it's based on # of school days.

The 36.6 hours from HRDC/Statscan was including part-time workers, or at least people who worked less than 30 hours a week.

Really. We need to look for a better source then. But, yes... this will help your numbers.

I meant the claims about them being overwhelmed and working so much harder than everyone else (their go-to when people point out their unmatched vacation time when their compensation packages are questioned). The numbers we have would suggest they work significantly less.

"Harder" ... different argument ... "Overwhelmed" ... different argument ... Even from teacher to teacher to class those adjectives would change. Shushing kids in the library is easier than teaching math, I would guess. Let's just not go there.

We're making progress in our discussion, though...

Moonbox · December 15, 2014

The teacher number already takes stat holidays into effect, as it's based on # of school days.

Fair enough, it pretty much works out as exactly 39 weeks (196 school days). Compare that to the average Canadian and that means that teachers are working nearly 6 weeks(or 15%) less.

Really. We need to look for a better source then. But, yes... this will help your numbers.

Yes, it will, but it doesn't matter that much anyways because even if average full-timers WERE only working 36.6 hours per week, they'd still be working significantly more overall than teachers.

"Harder" ... different argument ... "Overwhelmed" ... different argument ... Even from teacher to teacher to class those adjectives would change. Shushing kids in the library is easier than teaching math, I would guess. Let's just not go there.

We have to, because this is the rhetoric we're getting from the teachers and their unions when it comes to negotiating contracts. We hear it all of the time and we've heard it on this thread. By the numbers and relative to most Canadians, it simply isn't true. Their testimonials of how hard-done they are don't hold much weight either. Everyone thinks their job is hard and that they're overworked and under-appreciated. Not everyone has the benefit of a labour union holding taxpayers hostage for an essential service.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Moonbox

Michael Hardner · December 15, 2014

Yes, it will, but it doesn't matter that much anyways because even if average full-timers WERE only working 36.6 hours per week, they'd still be working significantly more overall than teachers.

I concur. You have changed my mind.

Everyone thinks their job is hard and that they're overworked and under-appreciated.

That's why we can't go there.

Ash74 · December 16, 2014

Sam Hammond is saber rattling getting ready for the contract negotiations. The next election is almost four years away so now would be the time for the government to write a big check to the unions to buy labor peace. A fight now will not help any party so if Wynne wants the anti tory push she wil pay now to look strong later.

Moonbox · December 16, 2014

A fight now will not help any party so if Wynne wants the anti tory push she wil pay now to look strong later.

Wynne has literally no reason to not be tough with the public sector unions. The Liberals were already in hot water prior to the last election and it's only got worse for them since. The auditor general's report came out recently and it was scathing. There's also 3+ years until the next election, so any labour disputes right now will be forgotten by that time, while the growing public debt will not be. Additionally, the ETFO is running out of friends at Queen's Park. If the Liberals get tough, where are the Teachers' votes going to go? Obviously not the PC, and they swore off the NDP back in the early 90's, so getting tough with Teachers is a political no-brainer right now.

Boges · December 16, 2014

Who are the Unions going to back if the Liberals play hardball? The NDP????

Ash74 · December 16, 2014

Who are the Unions going to back if the Liberals play hardball? The NDP????

They actually did for the last election. The teachers union has stated that the Liberals have no dept to the unions.

It is just saber rattling. The unions didn't want a Liberal Majority and nobody thought they would get it.Including the Liberals.

We are so screwed

ironstone · December 16, 2014

I keep hearing about how bad shape Ontario is. I don't see it. I see things looking up. Spending more on public education will benefit everyone. Provincial debt is way overrated. Ontario will be just fine.

If you don't see it you must not be looking very hard.This government has been piling up debt for around a decade now,or as a left-winger like yourself would put it "investing".So when will these "investments"start to pay off?Are you aware Ontario is now a have-not province?Kathleen Wynne is turning Ontario into another Quebec,always demanding handouts.

Moonbox · December 17, 2014

They actually did for the last election. The teachers union has stated that the Liberals have no dept to the unions.

It is just saber rattling. The unions didn't want a Liberal Majority and nobody thought they would get it.Including the Liberals.

We are so screwed

They did not. The teachers backed the Liberals in a big way and will continue to do so. The NDP are more or less reviled in Ontario (unfairly I might say), so the teachers have the option of backing the Liberals or watching the PC's take over.

socialist · December 17, 2014

If you don't see it you must not be looking very hard.This government has been piling up debt for around a decade now,or as a left-winger like yourself would put it "investing".So when will these "investments"start to pay off?Are you aware Ontario is now a have-not province?Kathleen Wynne is turning Ontario into another Quebec,always demanding handouts.

I keep hearing debt this and debt that. I'm not concerned. It is our duty as citizens of a democracy to pay taxes.

The sky has been falling for years, yet when I look up, all I see is sky. I don't worry about what Chicken Little says. Debt is just an angry excuse of right-wingers.

Ash74 · December 18, 2014

They did not. The teachers backed the Liberals in a big way and will continue to do so. The NDP are more or less reviled in Ontario (unfairly I might say), so the teachers have the option of backing the Liberals or watching the PC's take over.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/08/11/ontario-elementary-teachers-meet-ahead-of-contract-talks

Now I will agree with the NDP are reviled. Not unfairly unless you compare them to the Liberals. The Ontario Liberals should be even more despised than the NDP or the P.C's that I will agree with.

The NDP years were a terrible time during a recession. The recession was by no means Rae's fault.His reaction too it was the issue. When everybody was hurting ,He made welfare much more appealing than working. The start of the over regulation of businesses started and the tax hikes that scared businesses away. Over spending with pet projects. His MPP's ran for a new job when the election neared. In the end He saw how out of control it had all gotten and started cutting. Hello "Rae Days". He is likely the smartest person in politics but he was a just a very bad premier. (WOW, got off topic there)

The teachers will follow which ever party will give them the most. I have no issue with raises for teachers,doctors or nurses but my issue is with the side deals. Maintenance contracts, administrators and the bureaucrats tht suck us all dry. Unions don't care about teacher raises. They want more teachers for more union dues. The teachers unions have proven time and time again they care nothing about the students.

Big Guy · December 18, 2014

I would like to see some stats on who "teachers" vote for. Real stats not assumptions and spins. Many in the profession are NDP supporters because of the perceived more humanitarian policies, Many support the Liberals because people in the higher income brackets tend to support Liberal policies. Many support Conservative policies because many teachers are fairly well off, have investments, and certainly do not mind tax cuts.

To assume that they all vote as a homogeneous group at the direction of their union is a mistake.

I think you may find that teachers views are as diversified as anyone in the general population who has attained at least one University degree.

Also on these boards, you will very seldom read what real teachers want but you will get lots and lots of information on what teachers want from non-teachers.