Displaced Staff Must Pound the Pavement or Become Day-to-Day Substitutes
The Department of Education can no longer be allowed to mismanage and inadequately fund schools and then blame UFT members when students don't perform. Unfortunately, Randi Weingarten has gone along with their plan. When the closing of Lafayette HS in Brooklyn was announced, after promising the teachers support, Weingarten said: "It is no secret that there have been problems at Lafayette, so its closing is not surprising. We are working with the DOE to create a redesigned school - and potentially two new schools - that parents will want to send their children to and where educators will want to teach."
ICE is calling for a moratorium on closing/redesigning schools until there are independent studies done to assess the impact of closing schools on entire school communities throughout the city. We are also demanding that the UFT use part of its "Teachers Make a Difference" campaign to publicize the need for full funding for all schools, but particularly the need to push for extra funding for schools where students are lagging behind in order to: lower class sizes, provide modern up to date facilities as well as safe and stable environments as an alternative to closing schools and displacing students and staff, which results in severe overcrowding of neighboring schools.
In the 2005 giveback laden contract, Unity Caucus negotiators and their New Action (former opposition caucus) partners quietly gave away preferred placement rights for UFT members when schools are closed/redesigned or if personnel are in excess, eliminating Article 18G5 that gave members displaced because a school was closing or being phased out "the broadest possible placement choices available within the authority of the Board." The elimination of Article 18G5 in 2005 and in the 2006 contract extension was glossed over in the so-called "fact" sheets put out by the union leadership urging a YES vote. Educators, regardless of their experience or ratinsg, now have to pound the pavement when their schools are closed to find their own positions. If they do not do so, they become Absent Teacher Reserves (day-to-day substitutes in a district with full pay and benefits but no steady classroom assignment). UFT leaders actually had the gall to brand this as an "improvement" along with the Open Market Plan.
60 comments:
That's our union... yea go union...
Who is next?
Canarsie HS?
or maybe FDR (TJC central)? That way they could kill two birds with one stone.
Our union works "with" the DOE to achieve the Unity goal.
It's good to know that our union defends us so stalwartly.
Would love to withhold my union dues. Tired of paying dues to support just a few.
The ATR situation:
With more schools closing, the ATR situation will get worse for those making higher salaries. Who wants to hire these people? After spending a year as an ATR they will be offered a buy-out. They will be given an "incentive" to take it. How? They will find themselves being written up for going to pee without signing a log book and not bringing back a sample. The worst classes, the worst schedules, etc. Attack dog administrators will get a feather in their cap for every ATR they manage to "convince" to take the buy-out.
Can anyone explain what the buyout will be? Are they being offered a reduced pension with extra cash bonus to cover any penalties for early retirement????
Also, the day Lafayette HS was put on the list, a teacher from that school was interviewed and said that he was not surprised since the school was underutilized. I was taken aback by that comment because he seemed resolved rather than outraged. I just wondered if he was the Unity rep.
And, under this new contract, deadlines by the DoE for meeting grievance decisions are not honored. So how is this an improvement? Why does our union allow teachers to have 2-half preps instead of a full one and sit on their asses waiting for a decision to come instead of taking the DoE to court for not abiding by the rules? This just proves that LIF grievances are not only dead in the water, but all grievances are.
The first part of your post makes sense. The latter part doesn't. As usual you guys are just angry, bitter and fear mongering. The ATR's in my school are just fine. No one is going after anyone and they are not unhappy at all.
Moreover you're stretching to try to talk about the last contract which was passed BY 90% in which my understanding is that at least some ICE people were on the negotiating committee. What did they do about the ATR situation or Article 18G5?
Yeah why didn't the three or four of you on the committee tell the 297 Unity hacks what you wanted and make them do it?
It's funny how no one on Unity or ICE answered by questions regarding the ATR buyout or the fact that the DoE no longer has to abide by the rules of answering a grievance on time. So 2 pre-K teachers in D 15 have to suffer 20 minute preps and get very little accomplished and no one on this blog seems to care.
I think the two factions here are more on a power play than actually dealing with real-world teacher situations. This is a big part of our union's problem when the little guy no longer seems to matter to anyone.
We don't know what the ATR buyout will be and people in the opposition have been complaining for years about the UFT allowing the Board of Ed to get away with not hearing grievances in a timely way.
Here's the scoop on the negotiating committee from the inside from Teachers for a Just Contract. It seems as though everything the Unity people here have been saying about no opposition until the end is false. Read on please.
Inside the UFT Negotiating Committee
We are three members of Teachers for a Just Contract, who were part of the 300 -member Negotiating Committee. We took part in order to take advantage of whatever opportunities it presented to assure UFT members a “just contract.”
President Randi Weingarten and the UFT leadership have been trying to establish the legitimacy of this new proposed contract by presenting the negotiating process as “more democratic and inclusive than ever,” and the negotiating committee as “mostly rank-and-file members” with “representatives from all school levels, the functional chapters and every union caucus.”
While technically accurate, the picture it suggests of open, democratic discussion with input coming from the grassroots and free give and take among the caucuses, is false.
From the very first meeting, President Weingarten and her ruling Unity caucus absolutely dominated the proceedings. It was not unusual for Weingarten to talk for hours, and to speak at length after each and every person had spoken from the floor. No idea except those that came from members of the dominant Unity caucus was allowed to be given serious consideration.
Here are just two examples of how proposals that came from outside Unity were handled. The first proposal was even adopted later when it was proposed by the Unity leadership.
At the first meeting of the Negotiating Committee in April, Marian Swerdlow of TJC made a motion to reject “any and all givebacks.” Representatives from both New Action and Weingarten’s Unity caucus spoke against this. It was said that this would be “refusing to negotiate” and would violate the Taylor Law. The ludicrousness of this criticism was exposed during the summer when DC 37 negotiated a no givebacks contract and at that point, the UFT negotiating committee did adopt this “illegal” position. However, in April, the threat that this was illegal frightened the independents on the committee into defeating the “no givebacks” resolution. The majority of the Negotiating Committee, as members of the Unity caucus, were required to vote against the resolution, since Weingarten opposed it.
In the fall, Kit Wainer of TJC proposed that the UFT adopt the position that the Department of Education could not dictate educational methods to teachers. President Weingarten prejudiced the discussion by claiming this was an “ideological position,” as if it were any more or less ideological position than any other bargaining demand. As if that were not enough, she again played the “fear card,” claiming illogically that this position could lead to teachers getting disciplined. Again, the independents were frightened and manipulated into voting against a position that was clearly in the interests of UFT members, and of course the Unity majority automatically supported Weingarten’s position.
What is perhaps the UFT leadership’s most outrageous claim about the Negotiating Committee is that no one on the Committee raised the proposal to “win back what we gave back.” Although it has not so far appeared in print, this is being used by Unity members all over the city in what are clearly coordinated “talking points” to discredit TJC’s position that the contract should have restored at least some of what we lost in 2005. Many of the Unity members making this criticism were not even members of the Negotiating Committee.
This Unity criticism of TJC is totally false. At the September 13 meeting of the Negotiating Committee, Peter Lamphere of TJC called for a campaign to restore the givebacks, and argued that this goal would energize and mobilize the union’s membership. Weingarten and other Unity leaders reacted with great hostility. At the October 25 Negotiating Committee meeting, he repeated this call, focusing on eliminating the requirement that teachers work the two days before Labor Day. Weingarten recognized that Lamphere was calling for nothing less than a completely different strategy for the contract campaign, a strategy of mobilizing the membership to fight to restore givebacks and to make gains. She called for an immediate vote by the members of the Negotiating Committee on whether to “stay the course,” or to adopt Lamphere’s strategy. When the Unity position won, Weingarten suggested TJC should no longer be on the Negotiating Committee. In the light of how strongly Weingarten and Unity reacted, it is ludicrous for them now to claim that no one on the Negotiating Committee suggested we should be fighting to restore the givebacks.
One of the reasons that we joined the negotiating committee was out of the hope that it would be a tool for mobilizing our members in a fight for a better contract. The reverse turned out to be the case: this contract has come with even less mobilization than the last one. This is a fact that Mayor Bloomberg even bragged about at the Nov 6th press conference, when he argued that this contract shows how it “doesn’t work to yell and scream.” We in TJC feel the exactly the opposite: that we must organize our members for action to present the credible threat of a strike if we ever want to win a contract that goes beyond the low expectiations of recent concessionary deals. Our members volunteered on two separate occasions for an “action committee,” that was supposed to coordinate mobilization efforts, but after a brief initial meeting in the spring, this committee never convened.
There is one last point we want to make. We participated in the Negotiating Committee despite our reservations over the “secrecy provision” in the “Negotiating Committee Membership Agreement” we had to sign. We had to promise information would “not be disclosed during negotiations.” Since negotiations are now concluded, this part of the agreement is no longer in effect. We also agreed to a “confidential relationship” with other members of the committee. Having watched President Weingarten and other Unity leaders reveal in public meetings (most conspicuously Weingarten at the November 8 Delegate Assembly) how various opposition members of the Negotiating Committee spoke and voted in its meetings, we must conclude that this confidentiality agreement is likewise no longer in effect. Nevertheless, the only names we have used are our own and President Weingarten’s.
Megan Behrent, Peter Lamphere, Kit Wainer
The grievance was heard at the final step and still no decision.
So the DR told our school to protest against our principal. We decided not to do this because we think it's the union's responsibility to get action, not ours. We filed the grievance which is what the UFT always tells us to do. Then when they fail at doing their job, they bring it back to us.
As for the ATR's. Their deal probably won't be made until after the elections. If it is anything like an early incentive, it should be offered to all of us.
Excellent work TJC.
If a chapter doesn't take matters into its own hands, then you can forget about help from the union.
If you won't stand up for yourselves in order to pressure them, then they will just sit back and collect their dues and double pensions.
TJC sounds very credible in their reports on the negotiating committee. Much of what they are saying directly contradicts what Unity people have been saying on this blog for months now. I think I believe what the TJC people are saying.
I'll give the TJC people credit for finally saying something that they said at the negotiating committee. Why didn't Jeff and James say something sooner? Did they say anything there at all?
A few miserable schools close and perhaps a dozen teachers become ATR's with full salaries and benefits? Big deal. In any other industry, those guys would be out of work and really pounding the pavement. You (and they) can thank the Unity leadership you love to vilify for negotiating a no layoff clause. If this is your big issue, you guys are truly spitting in the wind.
I think we would rather keep our seniority rights than become ATRs.
We are not low-level employees, but experienced teachers who have far more to offer.
The chapter in question did what they were supposed to do. It is now in the hands of those we pay big dues to, and they throw it back to the chapter because the deal they made with the DoE has no failsafes.
For 2007:
I predict more schools will become charter schools before the new mayor is elected and Randi will be on that planning committee too.
The sky is falling!!! That's the TJC/ICE line nowadays. Scare people you will try, but the fact is...90% of NY's brightest voted for this contract. Does this mean that 90% of them are Unity? The answer is no. They realized this was a good contract. Please TJC/ICE, stop whining, stop scaring people, stop trying to make of yourselves the martyrs you are not. Cut this out and begin a campaign against global warming, or genocide in Darfur. I'll support this myself.
Have some of you Unity people seen how many schools in the Bronx, Manhattan and now Brooklyn have been closed? It's more than a few. Queens has had some closed too.
In the old days it was not that horrible because with preferred placement rights, you probably ended up in a better school. Now it's good luck on the open market. Unless you work in a really top notch school, you are in danger.
Only Unity tells us how lucky we are to lose a big part of tenure.
Why haven't the Unity people who love this blog said anything to contradict what TJC said about the negotiating committee? Could it be that TJC is telling the truth?
As long as it's not YOUR school, you don't have to be scared, right?
LHS has about 150 UFT members?
SShore how many?
The other schools, too...?
But as long as it's not you, it's not a problem.
Wake up UFT members. Vote ICE-TJC!
Frankly, I really can't respond to what TJC posted simply because it's just too long to read and I assume it must be more of the typical propaganda that they spread around. In fact, judging simply by the size of their column here, what they wrote is about 100 times more than what they said throughout the numerous (10 or 12) meetings of the negotiating committee.
It is a fact that this contract was approved by 90 percent of the membership. In my school all everyone wanted to know was "are we giving back anything?" They were happy we were making real gains. But of course, you guys don't care about what people want. It just doesn't fit in your agenda.
Finally, somebody keeps saying something to the effect that we've lost tenure rights. We've lost no tenure rights. Find me more than a handful of people who've lost their jobs in the last few years for anything besides SERIOUS misconduct (you know what I mean) The protections are still there, the system still works.
I guess you guys don't want to hear this ... but you should at least listen to the 90 percent who thought this was a good contract.
Save Darfur. Stop global warming.
9:20
Did you explain to your colleagues what the real gains were? How exactly were our working conditions improved for us and the children? You are another loser who doesn't have anything to do with the classroom. I have no patience for dirt bags who think their job got better with the last 2 contracts. Come visit planet Earth sometime.
Besides the angry "ranter" who is only as bitter as so many others here, is that all you really tak about is fear.
"Every school is going to close", "yours is next", "wait to see what happens next", "losing tenure", "you will lose your job" and nothing positive.
None of the "LHS . . . about 150" or SS HS any other school will anyont lose their job. They will all have a full paycheck and benefits. I understand that most ATR's from last year have already found positions. How many are left? I thought James Eterno once said there were only a few in Queens. So most have found positions already.
Ok, I'm reasonable. Quote me numbers. Tell us how many ATR's found jobs. Tell me how the teachers at Lafayette will fair? Help me so I don't have to worry about taking care of my family for the next 8 years before I retire. I really want to make it. Go ahead. Make me feel better.
Unity has been challenged to print the ATR numbers and schools in the NY Teacher. End the debate. Bet you won't.
Spitzer wants more charter schools, so I was not far off in my prediction which is based on current trends and not fear.
Now he wants a longer school day and longer school year. Well since Randi is into givebacks, this should succeed.
I too would like to know the exact situation with ATRs. Will the Unity Annon please tell us exact numbers?
What will happen to the teachers in these closed schools who do not find jobs on the open market? Do they become ATRs? If so this is an end to seniority rights. (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH 'TENURE')
To "unity must go":
You still haven't grieved the mass preps. I'll have to send you some courage pills I guess! Ok, that was a cheap shot, but perhaps it's kind of a cheap shot to ask the union to publish the names of ATR's in our paper without the CONSENT of the ATR's themselves.
I wonder how many atr's any of you guys know...
But I guess you're not interested in the truth...or the reality...
To January 03 at 9:30 p.m.
Why don't you take some time and read what TJC said and respond. Some people come here with open minds and they were not at negotiating committee meetings. What did TJC say that wasn't true?
I think their post looks very reasonable. they asked for the givebacks to be taken back and Randi's people said no. That's the short version.
How would this Unity person who cares nothing about confidentiality of the negotiating committee now wonder about publishing how many ATR's are out there because of confidentiality of their names? We just want to know how many there are, not their names.
When did we ever ask for names?? This Unity Annon is now grabbing at straws.
he/she confuses seniority rights with tenure and now thinks numbers means names.
And, while I don't know the mass prep story, why grieve it? Unity can't even handle the grievances they have. Teachers in D15 are still awaiting a decision on their prep grievance. They might one day be ATRs when that decision is finally rendered.
Everyone is not Unity when they domn't claim the praises of ICE.
How Almost Unity.
You don't have to praise ICE. Just be honest. Ask for the NY Teacher to print numbers of ATR's and their regions and that morphs into revealing their names. Psycho babble.
If ICE is spreading fear then expose them in this simple manner.
If you're not Unity you think like them. Enough said.
I thought Norm said somewhere that NYC Educator was great union activist. I don'y see much activism on his blog. He's a good writer and has somewhat interesting posts. But what does he do in his school that makes him a great activist?
I'm an ATR in Manhattan. It's o.k. I got a position for September. If the UFT publishes my name I will sue them along with anyone else that would like to join me. I'm glad I haven't been "assigned" or "appointed" to a school I didn't want.
So ATRs are lazy and don't want us to know so they claim their names will be used. Sorry, but if NY Teacher reports that Region 5 has 10 ATRs, what's so wrong with that?
Listen! I am an ATR too and don't appreciate you guys calling us lazy. I am a teacher just like everyone else. I just don't have a position now. I teach everyday. My friend and I both came from Louisiana and surely wouldn't want to see the public get a hold of a list of ATR's. Maybe they would say "get them out." When I was told they wouldn't have a position for me I kind of resented the fact that a more senior person would stay eventough I still think I'm a better teacher. But I know this is the way it is and one day it will favor me. There are no jobs in Louisiana. I'm fine where I am now. I am not lazy!
Louisiana,
The point of this whole discussion is not that ATR's are lazy but that it is a very difficult job to do.
I like the point you make about seniority which though you resent it, you also see that it might benefit you one day.
Except for one thing. The UFT has basically bargained away seniority rights so that you might find yourself one day after teaching 20 years (good luck with that) that if your school shuts down you could end up as an ATR because no one wants to carry your salary and you might see a first year teacher in your place. I have heard from ATR's who resent the hell out of this as no matter how dedicated a new teacher is, they just do not yet have the knowledge to do the job as effectively.
I think seniority rights which have been under attack by Klein and the business community actually brings stability to schools and to the system as it provides an orderly way for doing things. But the union basically supported Klein in this position (WARNING: Unity hacks will leap on this but watch what the UFT does, not what it says.)
As a new teacher you may feel judgements are made based on "good" teachers but many years in the system will teach you that is not true.
How many schools closed last year? How many will close this year? I think the combined number is very small considering we have about 1400 schools. You guys are whining and making an issue over a handful of people (as most ATR's are brand new since the DOE over-hired).
And by the way, we've already established that schools pay an average salary for all their teachers so actual rate of pay isn't an issue, then why exactly do you think these terrific, experienced teachers from closed schools have been unable to find other positions?
Many principals don't want experienced teachers because they are harder to push around. Twenty year career teachers usually know they have rights. New teachers usually take a while to figure out how incredibly unfair the school system is.
Guidance counselors, school secretaries and other non teaching UFT members are charged dollar for dollar on a school budget so it pays to hire less experienced people. (Teachers are averaged so cost to a school doesn't really matter. This means that the Unity person is right on this issue, proving the blind squirrel can find an acorn occasionally theory.)
Tenure has been weakened with one person arbitration instead of three; suspension without pay before a tenure hearing and expedited time and attendance hearings where people have been signing away their tenure rights. Also, giving away preferred rights for people when their schools are closed certainly weakens what tenure is supposed to stand for.
Lastly, the real question is why the Unity person won't answer what the TJC people said about the negotiating committee. I guess Unity people haven't been telling the truth that nobody asked to take back the givebacks in the negotiations.
About the blind squirrel from Unity on average teacher salaries:
May be true but the system as a whole saves money if they drive senior salaried teachers out. Doesn't it help upwardly mobile principals to be able to demonstrate how they saved the system money? Systematic driving people out instead of having to offer buyouts to save money as they did in the 90's.
What about the Region level? Does the region save money if high salaried people are out? Maybe the blind squirrel can answer this for us.
And as to the question as to how many schools out of 1400 closed, you might also ask whether you should be concerned if only 20 teachers in a school of 200 are being harassed. The very attitude from Unity that got us into the position we are in.
You make some very good points in answering the blind squirrel arguments about how it doesn't cost a school. It would save money to drive experienced teachers out of the system but then again the city would have to get rid of them before they are eligible to retire to eally save the money.
I gotta tell you what TJC said about the negotiating comittee is "hog wash". What people won't do to win votes. That why I'm splitting my vote and at this stage TJC isn't getting any of them.
Not one person has refuted one thing TJC said. Not one. "Hogwash" doesn't cut it as any kind of "fact." Give us one thing they got wrong.
We hear about not wanting to violate confidentiality, another ploy by Unity to keep information from flowing, yet Randi violated it in front of over 1000 people at the DA when she revealed how Jeff voted. So consider yourself freed by Randi's action.
I spoke to other independents (non-caucus) people on the committee and they confirm stuff about how the committee operated.
Just DA Truth I would like to know what part of what TJC said is hogwash?
The delegate from my school told me how she was booed when she voted against a Unity proposal. All she did was hold up her card when asked to vote.
Unitymustgo:
You almost had me crying...then I remembered why I didn't vote for you!
Just a few quick observations about the negotiating committee and TJC's account:
1. While true that the TJC nominee for the "president of the UFT" Kit did speak at that particular meeting, I believe it was amongst the few times that he did at all. More over, I don't even believe he was at most of the meetings including the day the deal was finalized. True leadership.
2. While Peter Lamphere's comments on Oct. 25 "was calling for nothing less than a completely different strategy for the contract campaign" it was less than 2 weeks before the contract was finalized and after 4 months of planning and implementing the strategy the DA supported overwhelmingly at various points since last Feb., and that is where the problem lay. The Oct. 25 meeting wasn't long after the DA had voted for the contract demands and now he wants to drop everything and change courses? That is what was voted down. We were getting close to a deal, the coalition with the other unions was only until December, the DA has overwhelmingly approved all of the steps and now we should abandon it? Again, true leadership.
3. This was posted on ICE's blog but where is ICE's comments on the negotiating committee? None except that it is "confidential". Jeff, James, and other ICE people were there and said nothing until the last day AFTER the deal was done. Why doesn't TJC report that? Here is your alternative to Randi and again, true leadership.
What about TJC asking to take back the givebacks in September? You Unity folks are too much. TJC is telling the truth and all you can do is knock ICE. I hope the word gets out about how you are often less than truthful. How many times did you say nobody asked to take back any of the givebacks? That was completely untrue.
Anonymous January 9, 2007 10:07pm. Does not speak with forked tongue when discrediting the TJC version of what happened at the negotiating committee.
Please cite chapter and verse to show where TJC was wrong.
You guys at the negotiating commitee were really disengenuous.
Why didn't ICE comment about the negotiations before TJC?
What's the difference who comments first as long as it's true? You Unity people cannot cite any part of what TJC said that was not true. Why not?
As I beleive was explained, it was all out of context not so much as right out lie.
ICE and TJC are working together. If TJC was doing the heavy lifting at the negotiation meetings and ICE decided to lay back and not muddy the waters, what is wrong with that? There was a sentiment on the part of some ICE people that these committees are a sham. Many do not believe as the TJC experience shows that Unity would have allowed anything they didn't want and would manipulate things to their end and in fact the final contract reflects that. The contract could have been decided on a year ago by Randi and Bloomberg and the negotiating committee was just a sham.
"Would have" and "could have" are wonderful fall backs nut not what actually did occur. If ICE and TJC are so interchangeable why are you 2 different entities?
As usual, the Unity person does not deal with the facts. What did TJC say that was inaccurate about the negotiating committee? Still no answer all these weeks later. this proves to any reasonable person that the TJC account on how there was opposition throughout on the negotiating committee is accurate.
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