City must be broke again? No, they have surpluses as far as the eye can see ($8 billion) but UFT the membership will pay the price once again.... Eterno on the ICEUFT blog
This never would have happened if not for you guys -- a Unity Caucus member on the way into the Del Ass.I'm not sure what he meant by "you guys."
Did he mean the MORE caucus which has been pushing to go beyond parental leave by calling for family leave?
Or did he mean the work of now ex-MORE -- the purged Mike Schirtzer who upon reading about Emily James' 80,000 parental leave signatures contacted her and invited her to an Ex Bd meeting to make her case -- she didn't even know the UFT had an Ex Bd -- and that was the only time Mulgrew stayed around to hear what someone had to say and he immediately took Emily under his wing and worked with her and escalated things.
I'll vote for the latter. And super congrats to Emily James for taking the initiative and putting the pressure on the union to get even this much. Read Emily's piece on the Daily News -- she is one powerhouse.
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So the big story today is the UFT's victory in winning paid parental leave. Not family leave -- taking care of elderly parents for instance. While this is being won in many plaw
I want in the deal. Anyone want to have my baby?
I am trying not to rain on anyone's parade because I think this is a good thing. But make no mistake about it -- UFT members are paying for it with the extension of their contract by 73 days, which then drops the yearly raises "won" by the UFT/Unity leadership in the 2014 retro-pay contract to
At last night's Skinny Awards in my speech I talked about my early years of teaching - a time when we won demands and didn't end up paying for them. But I guess times are different. Now people pay for things by extending contracts -- a neat trick -- in this case 73 days of a salary freeze --- think of the next contract and if late there would be retro - or would have been back to Nov -- now any retro in future contracts is back to Nov plus 73 days.
OK. Maybe not a biggie for most people but still -- there is something about paying for stuff this way to irks me.
On the other hand we can put out all kinds of suggestions.
How many days of a contract extension to guarantee there's toilet paper in teacher bathrooms?
Just think of the possibilities.
Pay out of your CAR to have your class size reduced.
The DOE can be like the airlines.
Want a bigger desk or a classroom or paper? Give on some CAR.
System wide -- 20 in a class for a 20 year contract extension (which equals a pay freeze.)
Maybe people can negotiate individual extensions with their principals for, say, better classes or a better schedule or lunch hour.
The possibilities are endless and exciting.
James, Mike and I were texting late morning and afternoon as we got word before the announcement. James then worked up the numbers and while not thinking this is a catastrophe he breaks through the spin while Unity apologists spin on their tops.
MULGREW-MAYOR AGREE TO 6 WEEKS PAID PARENTAL LEAVE PAID BY ALL OF US -
- The cost will be paid for, not by the city, but by all active UFT members. We will achieve the savings by extending the present contract by another 73 days.
Any increase in the next contract will be delayed until mid February 2019 so you now have almost 30% of a year of another 0% increase. Remember, the contract originally ended in October 2018.
City must be broke again? No, they have surpluses as far as the eye can see ($8 billion) but UFT the membership will pay the price once again.
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Quinn Zannoni commented ... - At the DA tonight, Mulgrew said two things that don't make any sense to me.
1: "No loss of raises." Obviously, the benefit to the City of extending the contract is to delay raises, effectively reducing our pay during the next fiscal year.
Turns out that 73 is exactly .2% of 365.
Let's assume an average DOE salary of 80,000. (Is there a more accurate figure? I can't find average DOE salary online.)
For a 1% raise, that's a .2% reduction. On average, that's $160 per member.
For a 2% raise, that's a .4% reduction. On average, that's $320 per member.
And a 3% raise, that's a .6% reduction. On average, that's $480 per member.
2: The more confusing part, he says, "We're not getting fleeced, we are paying exactly what the benefit costs." Without contract negotiations still ongoing, we can't possibly know what kind of raises we are delaying, and so we can't know the cost of this agreement. As you can see above, the difference between a 1% and a 3% raise is triple! The only thing that makes sense to me is that the DOE and the UFT secretly agreed that no matter what raises are negotiated over the course of the contract, the very first raise in the contract will be an agreed upon amount.
FLEECED ONCE AGAIN BY THE PEOPLE WHO ARE PAID TO REPRESENT MY INTERESTS. Family leave should have been a key ITEM for contract negotiation. The membership approved a contract some time ago. WHO IS MULGREW TO UNILATERALLY CHANGE THE PROVISIONS OF THE CONTRACT THE MEMBERS APPROVED? WHY BOTHER HAVING A CONTRACT VOTE? Our union leadership simply mirrors the city fathers. First, there are no rules, they do as they wish. Second, pit teachers against each other, too, divide and conquer.
ReplyDeleteWarning to Mulgrew on the next contract: unless Danielson is gone, class size down, the UFT moves on corrupt administrators who abuse teachers, and we receive the same fixed return on pension investments as CSA members, my vote will be NO. In addition, I am going back to my hardworking CL and letting him know I have changed my opinion on the Janus outcome. No more supporting the people who fleece me. I can't afford it any more.