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COLLEGE TEACHERS PAID TO STAY HOME

During recent weeks, more than 150 college teachers in Quebec have been paid a full salary to stay at home or work part-time. These teachers no longer have work, and refuse to take a job at a different college. The college institutions serve Quebec’s sparsely populated regions, and although the Quebec Education Department, predicting a decline in students, advocates the need for mobility of personnel; because of their collective agreement, teachers do not have to work at a college more than 50 kilometres away from where they live.

This has been a topic of dissention in recent education sector negotiations, with teachers rejecting the government’s offer, which would have obligated them to work at any location within their school board. Teachers staying home earn an average of $57,489 yearly for a full-time job, with the cost to taxpayers reaching $3 million a year.

Teacher’s unions, on the other hand, appear to see the debate as part of a bigger issue, in which they accuse the Charest government of trying to “disintegrate college education” (CanWest, 2005) by refusing to meet just demands of teachers.

References
CanWest News Service (2005, October 5). Quebec college teachers paid to stay home. Retrieved from http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/features/onlineextras/story.html?id=f8f395f6-e5a4-4bd9-af52-5185b998e8b2.
Royer, G. (2005, October 5). Charest government refuses to negotiate teachers’ just demands. Marxist-Leninist Daily. Retrieved from http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmld2005/D35162.htm.