Editor, The News:
Re: Teachers have earned their pay (Letters, Sept. 7).
This is a comment on the remarks of Kristie Ward and all others who have been defending teachers.
It is true that teachers earn their pay, as do firefighters, hospital workers, police officers and others paid by society.
The fundamental problem is, the performance of the economy is cyclical. It goes up and it goes down. That performance dictates the amount of money the government (society) has at its disposal.
This is not reflected in any union agreement. A union agreement is set in stone for a period of time, which, when negotiated, could be in a good economy.
During the time between signing the agreement and when the next one is negotiated, the economy could very well have tanked, as it has recently.
Therefore, teachers need to understand, they are valuable and they are worthy of raises, but, there just is no money for increases at this time.
Now, if the union negotiators want to look outside the box, maybe they could negotiate an agreement that would allow for wage increases in the event the GDP (or some other acceptable benchmark) was to reach an agreed performance level.
This way, they would be fairly compensated automatically, when the economy improved, and if the economy did not improve, well, at least they would not face roll-backs.
Mike Boileau
Maple Ridge