Mean-Spirited?  Who Might That Be?

Seems the entitled simply feel they should continue to be viewed as being entitled.  That they are able to enjoy the comfort and stability of assured positions, excellent salaries and generous-to-munificent benefits simply is not enough to relish and appreciate.  There is more than a tinge of greed in union thinking that plans to ignore the realities of economic hard times, and insist instead that union members are deserving of raises at least as lucrative as those of the past.

In the past, however, Ontario had a provincial government that preferred to maintain and sustain an agreeable labour-management relationship with its public-sector professionals.  The unions were able to scribble a set of demands that might be felt by some to represent a 'wish list', but which was viewed by the government of the day as a requirement to fulfill to ensure labour quiescence.

The provincial government is now engaged in preliminary preparations to bargain with many of its unions and it is well enough known that that same government of Premier Dalton McGuinty has already stated its expectations that public sector workers, in view of the straitened economic circumstances now facing the province - and in view of former contracts latterly awarded of a most generous nature - would be prepared to tighten their expectations.

The money machine is running on empty.  Teachers earning salaries that the mass unemployed and low-wage and median-wage earners would never have dreamed of taking home, were asked fairly directly, to minimize their expectations in the upcoming wage settlements.  Yet the education minister was left with her negotiators to a frustrated feeling of miscommunication when the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario negotiators walked out of talks in its first hour.

Behaving, said Laurel Broten, Minister of Education of the Province of Ontario, like spoiled children.  ETFO president Sam Hammond was singled out for special criticism.  "We are studying the minister's request and consulting with legal counsel and will issue a formal response later this week", was the emailed comment by the union.

Union president Sam Hammond characterizes the contract offer from the province as "offensive", "mean-spirited".  Those descriptions would be apt enough to describe the reaction of the teachers' union who very well know the state of the provincial budget and deficit.  The proposal from the government is for a two-year wage freeze, an end to "banking" sick days, replacing the current practise with one similar to entitlements accepted by other public workers.

And that rankles the teachers' union, who feel they are very special and should be treated that way.