Friday, December 06, 2019

TWU LOCAL 100 RAISES ONCE AGAIN EDGE UFT'S

I respect Transport Workers Union Local 100 as they are a real union that is ready to do whatever it takes, including a work slowdown, to achieve a fair contract.  Terms were released of TWU Local 100's tentative contract that was agreed to on Wednesday and once again they beat the UFT raises for the current round of bargaining for government employees.

Here are the annual raises according to ABC 7 news:
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Details are emerging of the tentative deal after leaders of the MTA and Transport Workers Union Local 100 reached an agreement to avoid a strike.

The unionized workforce will get a four year contract that is retroactive to May of this year, with annual wage increases of 2%, 2.25%, 2.5%, and 2.75%.

I gather everyone who comes by here wants the comparisons between the UFT and TWU contracts.

UFT increases:
2% on February 14, 2019,
 0% on February 14, 2020
2.5% on May 14, 2020,
 3% on May 14 2021,
 0% on May 14, 2022. (Contract ends September 13, 2022)
7.5% Total for 3.58 years*

TWU increases:
2% May 2019
2.25% May 2020
2.5% May 2021
2.75% May 2022 
9.5% Total for 4 years

TWU's 9.5% > UFT's 7.5%. That's clear. However, it is a little more complicated to do a direct comparison because the UFT Contract is for 43 months (3.58 years), not 48 months (4 years) like TWU. We did the annual breakdown:

7.5% divided by 3.58 years comes to UFT annual raises of 2.09%.

9.5% divided by 4 years comes to TWU annual raises of 2.375%.

That's .285% annually more for the TWU raises. UFT loses again. It might not seem like much but over the lifetime of a career, it does adds up.

I think the numbers make it clear the TWU is a more effective union and if we add the last contract in, then this becomes a long term trend where they obtain bigger raises. Their percentage increases are larger than ours in spite of the fact that the MTA in 2019 had to use cash reserves to balance its yearly budget while our employer NYC has multi-billion dollar surpluses year after year.

It is rather obvious the main reason that TWU is getting more money for salary increases is that they are prepared as workers in a union to do whatever it takes collectively to get a better contract. NYC teachers and our union for the most part are not prepared to do anything collectively. Well, action here is to complain anonymously mainly. We need a stronger union, not a weaker one with mass defections.

All of that said, I do not believe the TWU numbers are overly impressive. Today's very strong jobs report shows that 266,000 jobs were created nationally in November and there is now a 3.5% unemployment rate. As for wage gains, this is from the Department of Labor via Yahoo Finance: "Average hourly earnings year over year: +3.1% vs. +3.0% expected and +3.2% in October."

Unions should be citing these numbers for sure when we negotiate. The Federal Reserve is pumping more money into the the markets and interest rates have been lowered to keep the economy moving. I am no economist but I do not expect a recession unless there is some kind of crisis where everything comes tumbling down again. Unless that happens, unions should be screaming for more of a share of the prosperity because we know when the house of cards/bubble or whatever you want to call it falls at some point in the future, we (not the bigshots) will be asked to absorb all of the pain.




*We did not account in the main story for the extra 3.5 months the UFT's last contract was extended to pay for retroactive raises for employees who retired between 2010 and June 2014 and Paid Parental Leave.  There were 0% raises for that 3.5 month time period. If we were to add that in, the UFT annual raises would fall to 1.94% for the 3 years,10.5 months this current contract and the extension of the last one cover. We are also not including in comparisons with the TWU in the main story the fact that we are still waiting until October 2020 for 25% of the money in back pay for work we did from 2009-2011.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surprised?

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. It seems like the TWU raise was not that much higher than ours. One thing is for sure, the PBA is not going to be happy about this. They are still in arbitration and now another "pattern" has been set but the pattern will do nothing to get police salaries anywhere near what Westchester or Long Island cops get. This is part of the problem in NYC. There is ABSOLUTELY NO UNION SOLIDARITY. If all the municipal unions stuck together and fought together we could be living it up, but alas, that is not the case.

James Eterno said...

I agree and said yesterday in NY we need a general strike or at least one for public unions to exert ourselves again.

Anonymous said...

What are your thoughts on the “kids have a legal right to an education up until the age of 21!?”

We have a kid at our school and he’s done NOTHING, NADA, ZIP. He’s missing lots of credits is a senior with zero regents, the boy has done nothing besides be a disrespectful nightmare. He’s nice to me but a bad ass to others. He will actually listen to me behavior wise ..but he still won’t do any work.

In his own words: I don’t care and don’t give a F.

A part of me wants to have a heart to heart again and be like “Bruh, come on man. You gotta do something with your life—what you’re doing is not the way to go”.

He comes to school every single day and does nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I would love to be the one to change his negative demeanor but he simply just can’t be helped. He doesn’t want to be helped.

I feel like students who are “like this” should be an exception to this educational law. It’s a waste of space, waste of time, an utter waste across the board. Surely, we could have a student in that spot, but they just tell us (and we all know) “there is nothing we can do. He’s entitled to an education. We have to wait until he ages out”.

I feel like this approach is simply not fair to the other kids. Why should the kids who want to learn “have” to even share the same space as this kid. They get to see his negative actions, his disrespect, and his out right careless demeanor. I wish I could help him, but, if he doesn’t do work in all his classes, it’s just a waste.

They’ve even called his mom in and discussed other options and he was like nope. I want to be here because my friends are here. I’m going to be here until my time is up

Bob said...

Haha, typical doe. Get used to it. This will never stop. Students can do whatever they want. Nothing will happen. There was an article in the Post today about someone who was released on bail for KILLING SOMEONE. This is the era of 2nd, 3rd and 500th chances.

Anonymous said...

denial, deceit, delusion

Anonymous said...

“If I’m a teacher in a classroom and I have kids speaking four different languages and six kids in that class who are also homeless, how do you expect me to do my job and meet the needs of my students if you’re not funding properly?” Mulgrew asked lawmakers. New York City public schools are owed $1.1 billion in additional education aid from the state, according to city Department of Education estimates. Educators and advocates argue the funds are owed as part of the 2007 Campaign for Fiscal Equity court case ruling that found the state’s existing education funding streams shortchanged schools, particularly high-needs school districts.

Anonymous said...

How are we supposed to do all the things they expect of us if we have a classroom full of people who dont speak English?

Anonymous said...

Any district 8 teachers (Bronx) feeling so overwhelmed and not valued? What can be done? Especially if your chapter leader is not helpful. The expectations are unattainable and unrealistic.

James Eterno said...

Find colleagues to support each other.

Anonymous said...

We even get the screw on parking. I was parking the other day and noticed that other cars that were parked had passes...nypd..nyc water dept even mta passes in windows...nyc teachers park without any passes except for the ones they give us which has to be right in front of the school building..wtf

Anonymous said...

D8
its crazy this year

lets talk

Dec 8 6:45pm