Monday, August 22, 2016

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT LEAVES TENURE AND SENIORITY ALONE

The California State Supreme Court in a close  4-3 decision has let stand an appeals court decision that keeps tenure and seniority rights for teachers in the state.

In the original Vergara case, a trial judge ruled in 2014 that tenure and seniority rights for teachers were a violation of the California State Constitution but on appeal the deicision was overturned by a unanimous 3-0 appeals court judgment this past April. The California Supreme Court refused to hear the case thus keeping tenure and seniority protections for teachers. This was a significant case as the right wing has copy-cat cases in other states including New York.

Tenure and seniority protections have been weakened in New York but I would probably be unemployed if they didn't exist as my school was closed in 2014. I have spent most of the last two years as a provisional teacher.

Teacher unions have now dodged the bullet twice this year with the California courts upholding tenure and seniority along with the Friedrichs US Supreme Court decision where mandatory agency fee payments for non-union members were upheld by a split US Supreme Court in a 4-4 vote. If Justice Scalia didn't die last February, we almost certainly would have lost and we would be in a different world now. 

A ninth Supreme Court justice needs to be appointed and another will more than likely retire soon enough so the presidential election is quite important. Since the judges Donald Trump said he would nominate would more than likely be anti-union and anti-public education, voting against Trump is a no-brainer if ever there was one for public school teachers and parents. 

Like it or not, liberal judges tend to be a bit kinder to us. 

The people who want to destroy us aren't stopping. They have lots of money and will just pop up somewhere else.

"This decision falls short of the binding mandate for change that California voters, students, parents and educators had hoped for, but the issues at the heart of Vergara are not going away - and neither are we, " Students Matter said in a statement.

This quote came from The74, an anti union site.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is where we say, "the job sucks and we get abused, but it could be worse."

Anonymous said...

Agree 100%

Anonymous said...

if you are content with a garbage job, abuse, torture, terrible commute, but ok with the salary, even though 7 years of raises are 1% annually...To each his own.

Anonymous said...

Better that than working in one of Eva's hellholes. We could make it better but that would require a different type of union.

Anonymous said...

I would be interested in knowing how Trump would make things better. He would deport about a third of our students.

Anonymous said...

Now only if we had a union leader that advocates for teachers and not the city. If only we had a union leader that believes in retroactive pay. If only we had a union leader that does not allow ATR's to be abused. If only we had a union leader that is against junk science.

Anonymous said...

The previous comment makes a really good point. I been reading about de-certification and would like to know how it works. Right now at least a quarter of the members voted against Mulgrew. Sounds like we could be close to doing it.

Anonymous said...

Hey James any news on a new atr agreement? Do we rotate for a week or the 5 to 6 weeks like the last 2 years? Also any news on the unfair atr supervisor observations? Thank you for all the info you give to the rank and file. Wish our union had a blog where they gave out truthful info and the members could freely comment!

James Eterno said...

We rotate for as long as the DOE wants. Week long, month long, term long, year long rotations are all up to the DOE thanks to our union leaders. The 2011 agreement that we reverted to was printed here in July. Look through the older posts. As for the supervisors, nothing changes. Sorry as I know that is not what you wanted to hear.

James Eterno said...

If there is anything further, we will pass it along.

Anonymous said...

We should put our union representatives in the ATR pool and have field supervisors come by to harass them. Maybe they will get the point.

Anonymous said...

Thanks James maybe I'll see you at middle college this year

Anonymous said...

Anyone get a letter saying that health care is going up for family plans?

Anonymous said...

Anon 10:51-Trump could deport about about 25% of teachers too.