Have a contract? Negotiations broke down? Just ignore it all and forge ahead.
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee made good yesterday on repeated threats to bypass labor contract negotiations by imposing her own program to fire ineffective teachers, including a measure that gives poorly performing instructors 90 days to improve or face dismissal.
Details from the Washington Post at Norms Notes.
For our NYC colleagues, one of the reasons Randi has been so collaborative is her fear that BloomKlein will pull the same stuff. "See, we broke the contract, do something about it." So Randi makes deals to give up the arm and half the leg and brags to the membership how they still have their thigh bone while leaving enough loopholes that allow BloomKlein to whither it away. But you still have your hip.
Seems like the new leader of the AFT might have to come up with something other than triangulation to ward off mad dog DC Rhee!
ReplyDeleteA third term for Bloomberg will shortly bring matters to a similar head in NYC. ATR's will be shown the door, contract or no contract, and declining tax revenues will provide the rationale. Chicago has been bleeding for over a decade already. What has the AFT done to sound the call for solidarity? Quite the opposite, the leadership has had a seat at the table for the execution!
Our own oligarchs, with their empire in decline and their profit bubble burst see weakness on the home front and will grab everything that they can right out of your pocket and off your dinner table. As the great education philanthropist Bill Gates says, "Life's not fair, get used to it"
Ever hear of PATCO? The Air Traffic Controllers supported Reagan's election , good little patriotic white bread conservatives and then whammo! Very dangerous for the rank and file to mistake foes for friends. AFT has been doing it for decades.
All these neo liberal and neo conservative triangulating leaders of the AFT with obedient "educators" in tow walking into the sea, only most of the followers, unlike their leaders, have no life jackets or boats! So much for a college education and all those ed credits that seem to make educators even more stupid than the average citizens when it comes to identifying self interest. I recall that working class stiffs with no college managed to, at one point in a bygone era, to define their interests in Solidarity , An Injury to One is An Injury to All. They beat back the bloodsuckers, organized unions, defeated facism and pushed the oligarchy onto the defensive. But I guess that is just talk and as I was informed recently "talk is cheap". Well lets be grateful that it is cheap and do more of it, not idle chatter or mean spirited anonymous posts but as comunication for a purpose, to clarify our position and plan for the common defense.
Peace,
Sean