@ - Sunday, February 10, 1991 — North Shore News INSIGHTS — oS NEWS VIEWPOINT Education strike ORTH VANCOUVER teachers should examine carefully the reasons behind the slow pace of contract negotiations between their union and the North Vancouver District 44 Schooi Board before setting out on what could ultimately be an extremely damaging strike against local education. While West Vancouver teachers have settled their contract negotiations with the West Vancouver schoo! board in relative peace, the North Vancouver Teachers Association has been steadily increasing the volume of rattling sabres over the past few months: 72-hour strike notice was issued in early December, followed by a steady withdrawal of teacher services, culminating in Thursday’s three-hour ‘studs session’, which will likely be followed by rotating strikes. The icachers’ union is upset over the slow pace of negotiations and the ‘attitude’ of the district’s school board. The union calls it intransigence on the part of the school board; others might call it tough bargaining. And tough bargaining is what is needed, both to ensure quality of education and to save the shrinking dollar of the long-suf- fering taxpayer. It is a fight over wages and job security for teachers, whose average salary in the district for a 195-day work year is around $45,000, with benefits. And although teachers say quality of education is their first concern, it is quality of education that will likely suffer in the long run if the teachers get everything they want. The cost of initial teacher demands has been estimated at $17 million. It will not come from the provincial govern- meat. The money will come through refer- endum or out of the district’s budget. The success of the former is unlikely, the effect of the latie: will mean cuts to education programs. Some choice. NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK “Eve drawn up contracts sitting in Amsterdam having a beer and watching the girls walk by. All you need is a fax machine."’ Nerth Vancouver lawyer Ron Perrick, on drawing up contracts for high-profile professional athletes. ‘You don't go under hypnosis. You go under a table or under a chair. Hf we could hypnotize someone and tell them they would Publisher .... . Peter Speck Managing Editor _. _ . Timothy Renshaw . Noel Wright Linda Stewart Comptroller . . .Doug Foot North Snore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and quahtied under Schedule 111. 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, Fax Paragraph Ill of the Excise Taa Act, is published each Wertnesday, Friday and Sungay by North Snore Free North Vancouver, B.C. Associate Editor... Advertising Director never again have a weight prob- jem, we'd be millionaires.’* North Vancouver hyp- notherapist Daniel Rutley, on hypnosis and the common misconceptions that surround it. “Is Israel involved? It’s a lot like asking if Bill Vander Zalm was involved in the sale of Fantasy Gardens,”’ Educational Foundation of Canada member Mordecai Briemberg, on Israel’s involve- ‘THE VOICE OF NORTHLAND WEST UANCOUVER SUMDAY + WEONESDAY - FRIDAY Press Lid and distnduted 10 every door on ine North V7M 2H4 Snore, Second Class Mai! Registration Number 3885 Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, £25 per year 61,582 (average, Wednesday Maiting rates avattadle on request. Submissions are Friday & Sunda ) welcome but we cannot accept respcnsibdiity for Y Yi) unsolicited maternal including manusc:pts and pictures a which should be accompanied by a stamped. addressed YS . Ps SDA DIVISION en Entire contents © 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. envelope ment in the Persian Guif War. “The time has come for sericus action.”’ North Vancouver Teachers Association president Linda Wat- son, on the next phase of her union’s bargaining strategy. “It was gentle, kind of like Cana- dians are.”* West Vancouver actor Jackson Davies, on the Beachcombers television sezies. Display Advertising 980-0511 Reai Estate Advertising Classified Advertising Newsroom Distribution Subscriptions Administration MEMBER \ Sobering cost ~ of junking our lifestyle! BURIED DEEP in the figures of North Van District's pro- visional 1991 budget is a sobering message about the costs of environmentalism. District’s estitnated 1991 operating budget of $49.5 million includes a 10.3 per cent increase over last year just to maintain 1990 services. Almost one-third of the extra (three per cent) is for higher garbage costs, which are up this year by $1 million. The bean-counters measure those costs in dollars per ton. Eight or nine years ago, when the District still operated its own landfill, the bill worked out at be- tween $4 and $7 per ton. Today — with the landfill clos- ed and the trash shipped to the environment-friendlier GVRD in- cinerator in Burnaby via the North Van transfer station — the bill has risen to almost $70 per ton. Add to that the cost of the Blue Box recycling program, which Ald. Ernie Crist puts at around $100 per ton. As well, its success under present conditions is finan- cially self-defeating. Private collection contractors — in North Van, International Paper Industries (IPI) — need to sell Blue Box waste to recycling man- ufacturers, but they have no assured market place. In obedience to the immutable law of supply and demand, the more Blue Box waste is available, the lower the price drops. The difference has to be made up in collection and haulage charges. An obvious answer is legislation that would force recycling manu- facturers to buy from Blue Box collectors a set percentage of their total raw material requirements at a guaranteed minimum price. But don’t hold your breath. The affected industries have powerful lobbies to guard them against any such political tinkering with the free market system, as long as end costs can be dumped back on the taxpaver. Ultimately, of course, the sole hope of stopping the 2,400 per cent cost hike for garbage disposal over the past decade from soaring higher and higher lies in simply putting out a lot LESS garbage. But unless we slash our consump- tion, we'll have a tough time do- ing it. Walking or cycling to the mall with our canvas shopping bags and assorted containers would be the easy part. Once there, we'd need stores that provided fill-your-own jar/ bag/bottle dispensers for Noel Wright HITHER AND YON everything from milk, fruit juice and wine to cornflakes, pickles, vitamin pills and bath talc. Stores stocking only ink- refillable fountain pens, rechargeable batteries, cloth hankies and washable diapers. You don’t like that idea much? Well, industry and stores like it even less. So it would seem we've simply no choice but to pour even more money into junking our cur- rent lifestyle each week. Unless you go for the argument of one environmentalist 1 came across recently who insists there is no waste problem — only a PEOPLE problem. His solution? Vasectomy for all fathers of more than 2.3 children! @ee0e POSTSCRIPTS: Back again this Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 12, are Beth Lawrence and her ladies of St. John’s Church, 13th and Chester- field, with their now famous Pan- cake Supper -—— including tradi- tional British pancake races for all ages among the fun. Come one, come all at 6:30 p.m. ... Re- elected as Coho Festival president for a second term was Bill Chap- man at the Society’s a.g.m. last Thursday. The post-Labor Day funfest is set this year for Sept. 4-8 ... Learn how to make your savings work Thursday, Feb. 14, with Bob Resch who’! explain all about RRSP facts and figures at 7:30 p.m. in Capilano District Library ... And drop by tomorrow or Tuesday, Feb. 11-12, with life’s most precious gift at the blood donor clinics in Lions Gate Hos- pital, 2:30-8 p.m. each day. NEWS photo Cindy Goodman $1,209 PLAYHOUSE donated to Lions Gate Hospital chiidren’ ’s ward by West Van Fire and Police Depts. is shown to youn tients Gilbert and Leah Brule by firefighter Ted Skoisky ett) and Cst. Jeff Young.