Every time our collective bargaining agreement expires, the other teachers and I are forced to protest for things we don't actually need. Sure, the teachers' salaries in my part of the country are lower than they are in the other provinces, but they're fair and we can all live comfortably because of the lower cost of living. In fact, I know that the more generous salaries elsewhere were the cause of the province's massive deficits so asking for too much seems fairly unreasonable. That doesn't matter though and we all have to fight for higher, pressured by our colleagues to get with the program, even though we know that we won't get anything and will likely be shooting ourselves in the foot because the government will respond by increasing our hours tremendously for an extra one or two k every year which will only be taxed and not benefit us in any way. These unions are meant to do little more than protect us, but they don't actually do that at all. When I was being harassed by my administrators for years as a result of women deciding to gang up on me because some whore decided I was bad for not cancelling my marriage to my beautiful wife to get with her dumb ass, they did NOTHING to protect me. If anything, they empowered THEM even though all evidence showed ME to be in the right. It's truly Hell to be in this field and I don't believe that it will ever get any better since the Communists are emboldened by idiotic programs like "Red for Ed."