And That Ain’t Hay

Further to the controversy raging in our last Sunday at the Movies post, this Globe and Mail article reports that the Ontario public high school teachers' union is asking its members to pay a special 0.3% levy to boost its strike protection fund n preparation for next year's bargaining period. Said levy will raise about $10 million a year. And this is just one of the four Ontario teachers' unions (albeit the biggest one)!  

But it serves to give one a glimpse of how much money the teachers' unions have at their disposal. If .3% equals about $10 million, this means that every year the Ontario public high school teachers' union gets about $3 billion dollars in dues alone. It has no collection costs (the school boards collect and transmit teachers' dues for the unions) and pays no taxes. And of course the unions have additional revenues, for example hefty investment incomes and things like the $1 million the Ontario government recently paid this union to cover bargaining costs. I'd be interested in looking at the union's financial statements but I can't seem to find them online.

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