Dear Editor:
With several teachers vying for the positions as trustees on the local school board, it’s interesting to note one of those candidates is proposing that an education is the fundamental cornerstone in a democratic society.
Does that also mean that this same candidate is prepared to insist that B.C. teachers be allowed to lobby the government to put an end to compulsory membership in the BC teachers’ union? The BCTF is a closed shop union, meaning that a teacher must be a member of the BCTF to be allowed to work in the public education system in B.C. Having a closed shop gives the union an incredible lock on the teachers and enables it to collect about $40 million a year in taxpayer-funded union dues to lobby the B.C. government for ridiculous increases in salaries and benefits.
In the real world, unions are allowed to collect enough money to pay for the cost of negotiating and administering those collective agreements. The B.C. teachers’ union is spending millions of dollars not only to lobby parents and school boards, but also to fight the government’s initiatives for desperately needed reforms in education.
As voters we should also want to know if those school board candidates will lobby our government to terminate the B.C. College of Teachers, a union-controlled organization that has been allowed to certify and regulate teachers.
If any of those teachers are elected as school board trustees, who will they represent, the parents or the union?
Andy Thomsen
Summerland