Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 2, 2005 _ STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 . PUBLISHER: ROD LINK _ ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. - V8G 5R2 | _ TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 - FAX: (250) 638-8432 0 WEB: www.terracestandard.com. EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard.com . High ground © = REMEMBER WHAT your mother said: “It’s all fun until somebody gets their eye poked out.” “Which is another way of saying it’s too bad. : “Madam. Justice "Brenda Brown didn’t fine the |” B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) far more than _ the $500,000 levied against it for disobeying her back to work order to end its illegal strike. And then she ordered that the resulting millions be divided evenly among the parent advisory councils of each and every public school in the province as a form of compensation for parents because it is they who have had their eyes poked out these last few disruptive weeks. "These would be parents who had to shell out ex- ‘tra money for childcare or babysitting. For some _it is money they could ill afford to pay. Parents. who had to miss work, at another financial cost, to become part of informal daycare networks. Or ‘parents, particularly single ones, who may have _ had to leave their children unattended. There’s no practical way parents can 1 be com- pensated for what they went through but a hefty . _ fine placed i in the hands of parent advisory coun- cils would then filter back to students, who were supposed to be the focus of this strike in the first place. Hot lunches, field trips, concerts — think of the ways the money could be used. - > There’s really no way the. BCTF ‘could argue against this. It democratically and openly voted to continue its illegal strike. It knew the conse- _ quences of its actions. It knew those actions would -Tesult in some sort of legal sanction. The BCTF called its illegal strike variously a “political protest” and “civil disobedience.” Fair enough for such a highly- -disciplined and orga- nized group of single-minded purpose. © ~ . But civil disobedience and political. protest is” getting arrested as did Rosa Parks years ago for _ refusing to move froma whites-only seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. It is an act that affects only yourself to highlight an injustice. In this instance, the decision of the BCTF to mount its illegal strike took on the flavour of a traditional labour dispute. And that is withdraw- ing your labour which affects your. employer’s ability to do business in hopes of persuading the employer to hammer out an agreement. School strikes, illegal or otherwise, don’t hurt” the employer (which is ultimately the provincial government) as much as they do parents and stu- dents because it makes them virtual hostages. It might not even be too much to suggest that the BCTF voluntarily turn over a huge chunk of its strike fund, which is.at least $13 million once . the fine gets paid, to parent advisory councils. Now that would be a huge capture of the moral high ground in this situation. And, of course, it - would be a decided poke in the eye to the provin- cial government. “PUBLISHER/ EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach * PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS: Sarah A. Zimmerman _». COMMUNITY: Dustin Quezada. a NEWS/SPORTS: Margaret Speirs FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping, Carolyn Anderson - CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Alanna Bentham ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Bert Husband, Susan Willemen | AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik PRODUCTION: Susan Credgeur SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: ‘$57.94 (+$4.06 GST)=62.00 per year; Seniors $50.98 (+$3.57 GST)=54.55; Out of Province $65.17 (+$4.56 GST)=69.73 ’ Outside of Canada (6 months) $156.91(+10098 GST)=167.89 MEMBER OF B. ©. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, " GANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION AND B.C. PRESS COUNCIL (www.bcpresscouncil.org) ee BETTE! NEWSPAPE COMPETITI Serving the Terrace and Thomhill area. Published on Wednesday of each week at 3210 Clinton Street, Terrace, British Columbia, VBG 5R2. Black Pr ess Stories, photographs, illustrations, designs and typestyles in the Terrace Standard are the property of the copy- right holders, including Black Press Lid., its illustration repro services and advertising agencies. Reproduction in whole or in part, without written permission, is specifically prohibited. . Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Office Department, for payment of postage in cash. Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents * they had at the outset. - provincial government ' gave concessions relating to class size and composition despite - its position that it would not: “IT WAS AWEUL! WE BARELY} ESCAPED WIth THE CLOTHES NOTING ‘To WE'RE FINALIN GOING HOME. No BATHROOMS, No FOOD "T Fictny CROWDED Snecrees DRINK, DESPERATE PEOPLE AND NO Teachers win th LOOKING BACK over the last three weeks, ‘it’s hard not to concede at least a technical victory to the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF). Collective bargaining is re- ‘ally just'a big game of tug of’ _war.. Whichever side! ends up pulling the flag closest to its side, wins. It’s as simple as _ that. And the teachers came out - of this dispute with more than The bargain as long as the illegal strike continued. Don’t be’ fooled by the $500,000 fine imposed by Justice Brown of the B.C. | Supreme Court. That’s small _ change for a union of ' this . ize. ~The BCTF reportedly had a strike fund in the range of $14 million. It was paying teach- . ers $2 million per day until the Supreme Court imposed a freeze on its assets. Taking into account the money saved in strike pay over the last week after its assets were frozen, it appears the union has emerged from the strike with its bank account bulging. From the government’s per- . Spective, they have to be con- . cerned about the loss of cred- ibility they will have suffered by capitulating (in part) to the ‘| union’s demands. With more public sector bargaining on the horizon (is there ever a time when there isn’t?), the government has taken a blow which will carry _. ROBERT SMITHSON over into future’ negotiations. The outcome of this dispute is sure to tempt other public sec- tor unions to employ the same strategy. There are, of course, les- sons to be learned from a dis- pute of this type. Perhaps most notable was how both: | parties stumbled into the dispute hav- ing left themselves no apparent escape route. Both sides were intransigent from the start, leaving little hope they could negotiate a settlement amongst themselves. This, of course, is some- ’ thing of a collective bargain- . ing faux pas. A party should never put itself in that position unless it can truly afford the ramifications of .an indefinite stalemate. The NHL owners played that game beautifully earlier this year, showing that if you are willing to accept the. . consequences you can suc- cessfully employ brinkman- ship bargaining tactics." In this instance (notwith- standing their hard-line stance) — neither party was in a position to adhere to the all- or-nothing bargaining approach. The BCTF knew it could » Not maintain an illegal strike position for long and the gov- ernment. knew it couldn’t al- low schools to remain closed indefinitely, ’ Nonetheless, neither’ side left itself with a way out of the ~ deadlock. It was like watching an Abbott and Costello routine where. the two try to. barge through a doorway at the same time and succeed only in get- ting stuck. Lucky for both, then, that Vince Ready came along with a shove from behind “in the | ‘form of his recommendations. Left to their own devices, who knows how long these two | might have remained stuck? We also learned that the B.C. Supreme’ Court cannot, -necessarily be relied upon’to”’* “play ‘government enforcer’ in’ this situation. Justice Brown surprised everyone by initial- ly imposing only a freeze on the BCTF’s assets rather than hefty fines. The government must now assume the Court won’t au- tomatically impose crippling fines on unions engaging in il- legal work stoppages. If that’s the case, the gov- ernment must either alter its hard-line bargaining _ strat- egy or be prepared to impose legislation prescribing hefty fines. I doubt the government is anxious to prescribe fines as doing so would surely make them seem harder-hearted in the eyes of the public. Another lesson, which has yet to play out, is that the pub- is one over gov T - lic will not necessarily take this sort of inconvenience sitting down. A class action lawsuit | has been commenced against the,BCTF to compensate par- - . ents for the financial impact of the illegal strike. It may be years before that lawsuit reaches its conclusion. If successful, it could -result - - in damages in the tens of mil- lions of dollars. That result . could have a dramatic impact on the willingness ofunionsto - engage in unlawful tactics to obtain their bargaining objec- tives. — The - final lesson is that a productive negotiating session “is one in which both sides can walk away feeling like a win-. ner. Undoubtedly, we - will over the coming weeks hear — both the BCTF and the gov- ernment claiming victory. The.union wiill.say.it,has ‘achieved great gains for stu- dents and for the education system as a whole. They will trumpet that they were never in it for personal gain and that the anticipated class size and composition changes were worth the sacrifice. The government will be steadfast that it didn’t budge on the biggest issue (being wages). It will proclaim that class size and composition changes were in the works, anyway, so it really didn’t - concede anything in accepting Vince Ready’s recommenda- tions. Robert Smithson is a part- ner at Pushor Mitchell LLP in Kelowna, practising exclu- sively in the area of labour and employment law. TO A firefighter, hot spots are areas where ‘fire -re- vives and must be re-extin- guished. To a travel agent, hot spots are destinations popu- — lar with tourists. But to a veterinarian, hot spots are inflamed, itchy areas.of wet eczema that flare up.under a dog’s ‘fur without warning and in 24 hours can become palm-sized. Because a hot spot often — results from a flea bite, you ~ can be taken by surprise if your dog:in on year round ’ flea control such as Pro- gram. One of our dogs has had a hot spot on two occasions, both times in autumn. His latest began shortly after he ‘coated himself like a fillet in rotten fish dumped by the side of Haaland Avenue. He started scratching furi- ously at one hip, even plunk- ‘ing down in mid-run to aim a frantic foot. Soon we found clumps of © his fur on the grass or porch. Inspection identified an in- flamed bald spot on one hip. THROUGH. BIFOCALS . CLAUDETTE SANDECKI Suspecting the identical’ problem to a year ago when the vet treated him by shav- ing the area, injecting him with a drug to lessen the itch- ing, and giving me a cream to coat his involved skin, I used blunt nosed scissors. to clip the hair over and around the redness. I then washed the area with warm water and hibit- aine, a red antiseptic soap vets recommend, and ap- plied Betasone cream left ) over from his 2004 attack. ‘Ministering to a_suspi- - cious 35-pound animal is _ not easy. After he recorded his objection with a precise pattern of claw gouges in the linoleum, I leashed him close to one leg of a wooden » sawhorse weighted by a pre- Nafta love seat. From then on he submitted ‘to my first aid with no fuss, ’ but-to remind me of his dis- ' pleasure, when I slipped the leash, he refused to budge. Several days later, when I was able to take him to the © vet, I expected to be scolded for waiting so long. In fact, I felt so guilty, I - tried coaxing my visiting» sister into pretending the dog was hers. Unbelievable, the vet said I had done all the right things, even if I didn’t understand why. Seems clipping the hair short is not to clear a path for the cream but to allow air ‘to dry the weeping skin. The vet advised using cold water with the hibitaine, for. its numbing effect. Rinse the hibitaine well, pat dry with Seeing red with your pet dog a paper towel, then apply. a thin layer of Betasone over the reddened skin. | Apply a skim of polyspo- rin to any area that hints it is or could become infected. Polysporin is an antibiotic containing the anesthetic Lidocaine, and is available of any drugstore shelf. The vet also prescribed ten days — of Cephalexin, an antibiotic, and three days of Betasone and ‘ polysporin following another hibitaine wash, this - time with cold water. © Having once experienced a hot spot, it was easier for me to identify this time. With his first hot spot, I thought the red circle the size of a pencil dead center in the white fur on his chest came from a pellet gun shot. I was amazed to see a - dime-sized lesion hidden by his fur. I felt confident my diag- nosis was correct this, time. Yet suppose I diagnosed wrong or he became infect- ed. A visit to the vet gave me peace of mind and the dog an antibiotic.