Today, more than half a million young British Columbians go back to school. If you thought buying your little ones their new backpack, school supplies, and running shoes was expensive—wait until you see the dollars the BC Teachers Federation wants to suck out of your pockets in the latest round of teacher bargaining.

The BCTF started limited job action today, and is rattling their sabres over what could happen later this fall if the provincial government doesn’t cave into their demands.

The BC Public School Employers’ Association sat down and costed out the BCTF’s demands. The total price tag of caving into the union’s demands would be $2.184 billion. Let’s put that into perspective: the total 2009/10 public school teacher payroll was $2.9 billion.

The total provincial government budget—for everything from hospitals to roads—is $41.3 billion. Basically, the BCTF is looking for a 5% increase to the entire provincial budget to pay for their wage and benefit increases!

The BCTF salary and benefit demands are mind-boggling—and you’ll note this list doesn’t include anything on class sizes or special needs services:

•    A 22% increase in salary (the maximum would move from $74,353 to $90,944 a year).
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $618 million
•    Doubling high school prep time from one spare per rotation to two; and increasing elementary prep time from 90 minutes per week to 357. Plus: two days off to write report cards, plus one hour off per individual student interim report.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $417 million
•    Up to 10 days off for the death of any friend or relative—plus two days more if travel is involved.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $80 million
•    Sick leave provisions for Teachers On Call.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $81 million
•    Up to 26 weeks of fully paid leave per year to provide direct or indirect compaasionate care to any person.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $49 million
•    Eight days off a year whenever a teacher wants.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS $122 million
•    Topping up parental and maternity leave to allow up to 5 years of leave per child.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $41 million
•    5 more days off for professional development, at teacher’s discretion.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $80 million
•    Up to five days off a year to care for their child or any other person.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $80 million
•    Unlimited leave for teachers for union business.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: To be determined
•    Big benefits upgrades—fully pay MSP, extended health and dental, applying to all teachers (no matter how many hours they work).
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $82 million
•    Employer pays all professional fees.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $5 million
•    A number of improvements to Teacher On Call pay, including paying them $2,200 per month whether they work or not.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $60 million
•    Retirement bonus of 5% a year to any teacher with 10 years or more service at age 55.
TOTAL COST TO TAXPAYERS: $445 million

The $2.184 billion price tag is actually only a piece of what taxpayers would be on the hook for. Many other provincial government collective bargaining agreements have a “me-too” clause, meaning that if BC breaks their net-zero wage mandate and gives a raise to teachers, every other union can renegotiate their own deal and try to get more.

And don’t buy the argument that BC teachers are woefully underpaid compared to other provinces. Look at the facts:

Further, the BCTF statement of “tumbling from third place to eighth” is inaccurate and misleading, as the 3rd and 8th place rankings are arrived at using differing methodologies:

The reference to 3rd place uses 2006 salary data, and excludes the northern territories, consistent with the methodology set out above. In contrast, the reference to 8th place uses current data and includes the northern territories.

An accurate description of the evolution of BC teachers’ salaries from 2006 to 2011 would include either:
In 2006, BC teachers’ salaries ranked 3rd in Canada, and in 2011 now rank 4th; OR
In 2006, BC teachers’ salaries ranked 6th in Canada, and in 2011 now rank 7th.

Our advice to Premier Clark and Minister Abbott is to stand firm. The taxpayers of British Columbia are behind you on this one. These wage and benefit demands are ridiculous, and completely tone-deaf to what is going on economically in this Province. We can’t afford it, and we need to hold the line. Other public sector unions have begun to figure that out—why not the BCTF?