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I have seen more than a few contracts in over 30 years as a UFT member. I have been elected city-wide as a Unity candidate for AFT/NYSUT Delegate. I have been a member of the UFT Negotiating Committee for over a decade. I fought the 1995 proposed contract because it failed the test of solidarity. For that same reason I am forced to ask members to vote NO on this proposed contract.

One of the core arguments against negotiating a contract with that enemy of education, Mike Bloomberg, was a need to protect ATR's.

This PROPOSED contract, negotiated with an ally, gives ATR's significantly less due process protection than other UFT members. If two principals in as few as two days (ONE day in each school, as per Chancellor Farina)send an ATR back for (currently undefined) unprofessional behavior, an expedited ONE day 30-20A hearing can end their career within 50 days. The process is already skewed against members as is. We do not need to give principals and DOE lawyers any more of an incentive to get rid of primarily experienced educators. Other members get to keep a 30-20A process by which the DOE needs to document TWO YEARS of U ratings, followed by a hearing process that can take another year. This difference is unacceptable and discriminatory. While I do not believe Mayor de Blasio is interested in creating more ATR's, he cannot serve more than 8 years. His successors may close more schools and created another ATR army to winnow out.

There is also potentially a ticking health care time bomb. There is a requirement that there must be a very large savings in health care costs. But if it is not met, the process goes to a mandatory, binding arbitration, in which we can be FORCED to pay part of a below-inflation increase with health care contributions. This is a very slippery slope that can only be prevented by adding a simple statement in the memorandum of agreement preventing ANY imposition of new health care charges. This can only be accomplished by negotiation AFTER a NO vote on this proposal.

Also, the skeptical math teacher in me looks at the statement that members retiring by the end of 2015 will get all of their retroactive pay. But all of what? Is it 100% of the 2009-2011 pattern virtually every other union received, which would give teachers at maximum 100% of almost $30,000? Or is it based upon the salary table on the UFT.org site, which shows a 1% raise in May 2013 and a 1% raise this May? This would result in a 100% of only $3000. (Editor's Note: UFT's Mona Romain and Janella Hinds told two of us that pensions would be calculated based on full arrears so it would be over $30,000 but we haven't seen this in any Memorandum of Agreement.) These questions can be answered if the UFT sends a representative to the contract forum Francis Lewis HS Chapter Leader Arthur Goldstein is trying to organize.

Another factor is how the contract discriminates among those who worked under an expired contract. Members who resigned or who have been terminated will get ZERO retroactive pay. This is unacceptable and discriminatory.

Another reason I cannot support this proposal is the $1000 signing bonus in lieu of a contractual raise. I was taught by long-time union leaders that you NEVER do this. A bonus is a one-shot. A raise is forever. The reason we are being asked to accept this is because we are inexplicably accepting raises well below the rate of inflation, and the bonus helps hide this. The last 7 years of the contract have a measly 10% raise. The first two years of 4% + 4% are covered by pattern bargaining, which has governed New York negotiations for over 40 years (including years when we had to take ZERO's because other unions settled to prevent layoffs that were not on the table for us).

Another problem deals with retroactive pay. Any time we have previously loaned the city money by delaying raises we have received interest or a trade-off like the mid-winter recess (thank you Randi!). Here raises are being stretched out to 2020 - ELEVEN years after the last contract expired. In addition, the salary table in September will NOT reflect an 8% raise. This becomes an incentive for all future administrations to unreasonably delay contracts, then stretch out retroactivity to make a mockery of it.

We have rightfully criticized other unions for negotiating contracts that bind other unions by establishing horrible patterns that were then used against us. With this contract we become the enemy of other municipal workers. We would make other union members happy by rejecting this contract. Police officers have already said this pattern is not acceptable for them.

There are good parts about this contract. The use of the 37.5 minutes uses ideas (like parent contact)that I proposed and Dr. Morris regularly rejected. However, this gain does not make-up for the shortfalls.

You all deserve better. We improved the 1995 contract by going back to the drawing board, eliminating the most discriminatory aspects. You have the ability to reject this contract proposal - and no matter what anybody says, it is only a PROPOSAL. We can, and should, do it again.

People say you are judged by your friends. The virulently anti-union Daily News and Post have hailed this agreement, before pulling back a bit when their suspicious support was noticed. This alone should make any undecided educator think twice.

If you have any questions, or doubt any of this information, please feel free to contact me. And please feel free to share with your friends.

Thanks for listening.

David S. Pecoraro
Former Beach Channel HS Chapter Leader, 2000-2012
Former Andrew Jackson HS Chapter Leader 1993-1996
Former BCHS Delegate, 1996-1998 & 2012-2014
Former AJHS Delegate, 1988-1993
Parent Member & Recorder, HS For Construction Trades, Engineering, & Architecture School Leadership Team 2010-Present

 

and come out for the Take Back Our Schools rally on May 17!

Weekly Update #97 May 12, 2014 Share Tweet Forward to Friend

Get informed! Get connected!  Come to a MORE Happy Hour this week to discuss the contract proposal, get your questions answered, and pick up Vote NO flyers. Don't forget to download and print the flyer from the website and distribute to your coworkers and other schools. Queens (Districts 30, 24) Thursday, May 15th 4:30pm Studio Square 35-33 36th St. (QNS) RSVP on Facebook South Bronx Friday, May 16 4:15-6:30pm Wish 37 37 Bruckner Blvd. (BX) Inwood/West Bronx Friday, May 16 4:00-6:00pm Inwood Local 4957 Broadway (b/w 207th St. and Isham) Bay Ridge (Districts 20, 21, 22) Friday, May 16 3:30-6:30pm Harp Bar 7710 3rd Ave. (BK) RSVP on Facebook Park Slope and Sunset Park (District 15) Friday, May 23 4:00-6:00pm Freddys Bar and Backroom 627 5th Ave. (BK) RSVP on Facebook Lower Manhattan (Districts 1, 2) *Book reading, signing, and discussion of Dante's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School Gulag Wednesday, May 14 6:30-8:30pm Nuyorican Poets Cafe 236 E. 3rd St. (Man) RSVP on Facebook   Join us on May 17, 2014 to Take Back our Schools 2:00pm, City Hall Park Click here to RSVP Today! View event page - Watch the video! On Saturday, May 17th at 2:00 pm, thousands will join Diane Ravitch, Carol Burris, Leonie Haimson, Brian Jones to fight to preserve and protect public education. Save Our Schools is proud to partner with MORE, NYSAPE, BATs, CTS, and other advocacy groups in calling for community activists, parents, educators, and lawmakers to join together and march in support of a developmentally appropriate and equitably funded public education free from the influence of corporate reform and high stakes testing. PRE- AND POST-RALLY ACTIVITIES: Pre-Rally Brunch and Sign-Making Party Saturday, May 17 10:00am-12:00pm Megan Moskop's house in Upper Manhattan (near City College) Email [email protected] to RSVP and get address Post-Rally Happy Hour Saturday, May 17 4:00-7:00pm (near City Hall Park) Educators and concerned citizens! Come relax after the big rally, meet and chat with other activists, and check out Jacobin Magazine's new Class Action: An Activist Teacher's Handbook.  RSVP on Facebook Copies of the handbook will be available- we recommend using them as an organizing tool. SchoolBook: Here's Why NYC Teachers Should Reject Labor Contract (Julie Cavanaugh) The Nation: Should New York Teachers Reject De Blasio's Proposed Contract? (Michelle Chen) MORE Caucus: The Contract We Do Not Deserve DA Report: Why Vote No

I keep hearing that some teachers are afraid to vote no on the contract because they think that in the context of the anti-union and anti-teacher times we are living in, we cannot do any better. This type of defeatism has to be stopped if we ever are to regain our professional dignity. 

Many of us have been beaten down so long by Bloomberg style teacher bashing that we are suffering from a fatalistic belief that conditions can only worsen.  Some believe that if we don't accept what most agree is a subpar contract offer, then the powers that be will only be angrier at us and beat us down more.  Accept Bloomberg friendly conditions or they will make them even worse.

I can't tell you how wrong these people are.  Perk up ladies and gentlemen: Things are changing in our favor.

For proof I submit as evidence a meeting that took place between Governor Andrew Cuomo and representatives of Stronger Together on Thursday.  Stronger Together is the group that is now the opposition caucus in our statewide union NYSUT but is the majority caucus outside of NYC.

Governor Cuomo is in trouble politically with parents and educators statewide in large part because of his horrible education policies so he agreed to meet with five Long Island teacher union leaders who oppose his radical anti-public school agenda.  Long Island teachers and parents led a 2,500 person protest outside a Cuomo fundraising party on Long Island on April 29.  They will be rallying again on May 22 at the NYS Democratic Convention in Melville.  Cuomo is not happy about how his popularity has fallen recently. 

Our friend Beth Dimino, the President of the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association, and the four other teacher union leaders told the governor on Thursday how awful his education policies are.  Here is the key paragraph from the PJSTA website:

At the meeting the team raised concerns about high stakes testing, APPR’s, the tax cap, charter schools, Pearson, and RttT, among other things.  Dimino told the governor that given his actions up to this point she could only assume that he didn’t know the truth about the harmful agenda he had been pushing.  After the group gave him the perspective of real classroom teachers they suggested potential solutions to the disastrous situation his policies have created.   Dimino then warned him that he now knew the truth and that there is no excuse for the continuation of such policies.  She stated that there would be a price to pay if swift action is not taken to undo much of what has been done up to this point.  Dimino explained to the Governor that there were two things he could do immediately to mitigate the devastating impact his agenda has had on NYS students, first decouple the testing from teacher evaluations and then decouple all of the unfunded mandates from the tax cap, either by funding those mandates or by making them exclusionary under the cap. (Bold added by me.)

Now is the time to kick the living daylights out of the teacher evaluation system.  Let's end rating teachers based on student test scores, not embed it into our contract as UFT President Michael Mulgrew is asking us to do.

The political winds are at our back. We can move ahead to a better place or we can keep trying to appease the people whose ultimate goal is to destroy us.  The Mulgrew contract's acceptance of Bloomberg style working conditions will likely take us another step closer to our demise.  The reconfigured time, merit pay, forced unit plan writing, much weaker tenure protections, horrible evaluation system placed permanently in the contract, charter school like contracts in up to 200 schools, the mystery on health care, wage deferrals without interest and wage increases that do not keep up with inflation are not gains.  There is a better way forward; our friends on Long Island and upstate are blazing the trail.  Let's join them.

It was a very sad day indeed in the history of democracy at the May Delegate Assembly.  The meeting was moved to the NY Hilton.  I am going to dispense with my usual lengthy summary of what President Mulgrew said because you've already seen most of it in the UFT propaganda literature or you will hear it when union representatives come to your schools.

Mulgrew made the case for the contract for over an hour and then doubled the question period to half an hour to speak some more.  He finally allowed for debate on the contract after 6:00 pm when there is an automatic adjournment at 6:15 p.m. His basic argument is that the city has no money for raises because former Mayor Bloomberg depleted the labor reserve. The one sided discussion was worse than even the usual DA mangling of democracy.  It was a complete sham.

After Mulgrew finally finished talking, one Unity person (majority caucus of the UFT which does not allow dissent) spoke in favor of sending the contract to the membership for ratification and then Mulgrew pointed to a second Unity member and that is when I sprung forward and called for a point of order.  As everyone who regularly reads this blog knows, debate is supposed to alternate between speakers for and against every topic according to Robert's Rules.  Since there was a speaker for the contract, there should be one against.  The Unity speaker was willing to yield the floor so Mulgrew gave it to me.

I had a thorough speech ready (see below) where I was about to go point for point to refute much of what Mulgrew said.  I started right out on the economics. 

"Up until two months ago at the DA, Mulgrew was telling us that the city has money but they always say they are broke.  I keep reading in the papers that the city surplus is growing."

(Mulgrew in February:
“We look at the city’s fiscal numbers all the time; it is clear to us that there is money out there. We need our teachers to be paid at least at the level of the school districts around us, which we are not.”)

I continued: "The city is not in bad shape financially so why are we settling for so little.  If we take out the 4% + 4% for the first two years that just equals the last pattern (and we won't see it until between 2015 and 2020), the pattern we set for the rest of municipal labor is 10% total over 7 years."  That is the worst pattern in municipal labor history (at least as long as I have been around)."  At this point, Mulgrew stopped me and said I was wrong.  I responded that according to Robert's Rules when I have the floor, he has no right to interrupt me. I also told him that I have an interpretation of what's in the agreement and so does he and that doesn't make me wrong.

Someone then called a point of order and said that during the question period we agreed that people would only get 30 seconds to ask a question so I was only entitled to the floor for 30 seconds and my time was up.  Mulgrew said I could make one more point and I responded by telling him that the 30 second rule was for the question period.  I also stated that I sat and listened to him politely for an hour motivating the contract and now it was my turn.  He claimed that was my one point and time was up.  I then proceeded to say that I wished I was being recorded (earlier he said UFT policy is no recording) because the entire membership should be permitted to see how he treats people who are dissidents.  There was fairly loud applause as I walked away. 

Maybe I should have stayed and further held my ground but I felt I blew away his no money argument and other people could handle some of the other issues as well or better than I could.

Unfortunately, they never had the chance.  The opposition's next speaker took his 30 seconds to point out how Mulgrew was wrong on his 30 second rule as it pertained to the question period.  We had one other Delegate who had the chance to speak.

Mulgrew then stopped the debate at exactly 6:15 p.m. and called for the vote.  The overwhelming Unity majority obeyed their caucus obligation and supported the contract.

Time allotted for contract discussion:

• Pro contract side talked for well over an hour. 

• The opposition was given about 3 minutes of which half of the time was spent trying to keep the floor and tell the president he was out of order.  Would you call that a fair debate?

I have written out the points I wanted to make and will instead make them here.  Below that is a statement on health care.  We don't have to make up anything about the contract.  It is bad enough to fall on its own.

This Contract is based on deferred payments. President Michael Mulgrew told us that we have had wages deferred before.  He mentioned a wage deferral from 1991(in an email).  Let’s go look at that deferral and compare it to the current proposal.  
 
Back in 1990 we had a union friendly mayor who gave us a one year pattern bargaining busting raise of 5.5% however the economy was about to go into recession and the city soon thereafter found itself in a cash crisis.  The city threatened to lay off thousands of teachers including me.  To bail the city out, the UFT agreed to loan part of our raise to the city.  In order for the city to get us to accept loaning them our money, they had to sweeten the deal.
 
In return for loaning the city much of our raise, we gained:
* An ironclad no layoff agreement
* The February midwinter recess (we used to work that week)
* The ability to retire directly after a sabbatical
* A very generous retirement incentive that gave people up to three years pension credit allowing those with thirty years in the system to leave as early as 52 years old 
* 9% interest on the loan when we got the money back in 1996.

Thanks to the majority of the members of this union who agreed that solidarity with our most vulnerable members like me was important, my job and the jobs of thousands of other teachers were saved.

Let’s fast forward to today where again we have a union friendly mayor but now we have been beaten down by corporate school reform for a long time.  The city again wants us to defer money. This time it is the 4% + 4% raises other unions got that we are owed since 2009. In addition we are setting the worst pattern in municipal union history that other city unions will have to swallow of 10% over 7 years. I look at the city budget and I don’t see a crisis.  I see surpluses but let’s accept the premise that the money is tight.

If unions accept less money, then what are the sweeteners in this deal for us?

* Changing the use of the 37.5 minutes.  By my count, the extended time provision has been reconfigured 6 times since it went into the contract in 2002.  What makes anyone think this change of two days of professional development and parent outreach will be better than the tutoring or other uses of extended time? It is not a gain. 
* Merit pay or career ladder.  The ambassador teacher, model and master teachers just creates different classes of teachers.  It flies in the face of union solidarity.  We are one union. Funny how there is money for merit pay and the hard to staff school differential but not for our raises. As for the argument that it isn't really merit pay, paying select teachers more than their peers is merit pay. Don't they need to be highly effective or effective which means it will be based in large part on student test scores? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it usually is a duck. 
* We get a curriculum.  Not exactly a gain. We also now have to write unit plans.
* Up to 200 schools will be run like charter schools with short contracts.  I thought the UFT started a charter school to show how schools can succeed if they follow the contract. Now we want to run schools like charter schools without contracts.  
* Slightly altering Danielson but still basing our ratings in part on student test scores.  No gain there as now the whole lousy evaluation system is part of the contract.
* No interest on the deferred money unlike in 1991 when we got 9%.
* An insulting severance package for ATRs.
* Weaker tenure for ATRs.  Two documented occurrences of "problematic behavior" and we are in a 3020a hearing.  This provision divides the union into two types of membership; regular and ATR.  It’s antithetical to union  solidarity. We are one union; we should have one tenure system for all of us. If this new system for ATRs is so good like the President says, why not give it to everyone?  How can one argue this isn't worse than a major giveback? 

If we are deferring our money, where are the gains?  Where are the sweeteners?  All I see is the acceptance of the basic tenets of Bloombergism but tweaking them a bit. Those are not gains.

In 1990, The DA rejected a loan to the city and sent the Negotiating Committee back to the table to get a better offer.  They did.  In 1995 against a tough mayor, the membership rejected a contract and got a better offer a few months later that had a retirement incentive, a 25 year longevity reduced to 22 and a 5% reduction in new teacher pay was eliminated.  Where are our sweeteners now?
 
Yes these are tough times for unions and educators but this union has a choice: we can accept this contract which basically leaves the Bloomberg anti-teacher system in place or we can follow the lead of the teachers in Portland, Oregon and St Paul, Minnesota who have fought back and gotten better deals for their schools including lower class sizes.  The UFT did better in 1991 after this DA rejected an original loan proposal and we did better in 1995 when the membership voted down a contract. We can do better now. 

VOTE NO!


The contract is bad enough on its own.  We don't need to say anything that isn't true.  This is what UFT Welfare Fund Director Arthur Pepper said on healthcare.

Healthcare
Arthur Pepper reported that the UFT found the necessary savings the city wanted so there will be no effect on members.  We will have the same access to doctors, hospitals and the drug plan won't change.  There will be no premium for members.


Sadly Leroy Barr's mom passed away so our thoughts and prayers go out to Leroy and his family.

Here are the salary schedules in the proposed new contract.  It is truly back-loaded.  I could not recommend this. 

Chapter  (what's left of it) authorized me to vote no on this contract proposal at DA today. 

I am going to print the entire portion of the MOA that concerns Absent Teacher Reserves.  It is worse than we thought; anybody in the ATR pool is at risk. ATRs could go the way of the dinosaur because of the Mulgrew-Farina agreement.

Here are the key two paragraphs:

If, within a school year or consecutively across school years, an ATR has been removed from a temporary provisional assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area by two different principals because of asserted problematic behavior, a neutral arbitrator from a panel of arbitrators jointly selected for this purpose (the panel presently consisting of Martin F. Scheinman, Howard Edelman and Mark Grossman) shall convene a §3020-a hearing as soon as possible.

Based on the written documentation described above and such other documentary and/or witness evidence as the employer or the respondent may submit, the hearing officer shall determine whether the ATR has demonstrated a pattern of problematic behavior. For purposes of this program, problematic behavior means behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations established for professionals working in schools and a pattern of problematic behavior means two or more instances in a vacancy in the ATR’s license area of problematic behavior within a school year or consecutively across school years. Hearings under this provision shall not exceed one full day absent a showing of good cause and the hearing officer shall issue a written decision within 15 days of the hearing date.

A one day hearing that can lead to dismissal after two incidents of "unprofessional behavior" that can occur over two consecutive school years. We are all at risk.  Don't think it can't happen to you.  Even if schools aren't closed, many will be downsized by the many charter co-locations coming.

This might just be the worst provision I have ever seen.  How could any union ever agree to this?

For an alternative idea, please read what we proposed a while back on this blog

The entire provision of the MOA is printed below in italics.  My commentary is in bold.

16. ABSENT TEACHER RESERVE      
For purposes of this agreement, ATRs shall be defined as all UFT-represented school based titles in excess after the first day of school, except paraprofessionals and occupational and physical therapists.
Severance Program
The employer shall offer a voluntary severance benefit (the “Severance Program”) to ATRs who volunteer to resign/retire and who execute an appropriate release in a form prescribed by the Board (DOE) and subject to legal requirements. 
  
The period during which ATRs may volunteer to separate from the DOE in accordance with the terms of the Severance Program shall commence on the 30th day and shall terminate at 5 p.m. on the 60th day following the Union’s ratification of this Agreement.   

Other than employees who have agreed in writing to resign from the DOE, employees who are ATRs as of June 1, 2014 who volunteer for the Severance Program shall receive a severance payment according to the following schedule:

One (1) week of pay for ATRs with three (3) years of service or more, but less than four (4) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Two (2) weeks of pay for ATRs with four (4) years of service or more, but less than six (6) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Three (3) weeks of pay for ATRs with six (6) years of service or more, but less than eight (8) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Four (4) weeks of pay for ATRs with eight (8) years of service or more, but less than ten (10) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Five (5) weeks of pay for ATRs with ten (10) years of service or more, but less than twelve (12) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement. 
Six (6) weeks of pay for ATRs with twelve (12) years of service or more, but less than fourteen (14) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Seven (7) weeks of pay for ATRs with fourteen (14) years of service or more, but less than sixteen (16) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Eight (8) weeks of pay for ATRs with sixteen (16) years of service or more, but less than eighteen (18) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Nine (9) weeks of pay for ATRs with eighteen (18) years of service or more, but less than twenty (20) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Ten (10) weeks of pay for ATRs with twenty (20) years of service or more, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement. For purposes of this Severance Program, one week of pay shall be defined as 1/52nd of an ATR’s annual salary.

In the event that any ATR who volunteers to participate in the Severance Program returns to service with the DOE, the ATR shall repay the severance payment received pursuant to the above within six (6) months of the ATR’s hiring to such position, through payroll deductions in equal amounts. This repayment provision shall not apply to ATRs who return to work as day-to-day substitute teachers. 
Translation: This is a lousy severance package. Up to 20% of one year's pay to quit.  Not exactly enticing.

Interviews 
During the period September 15, 2014 through October 15, 2014 (and during the same period in each subsequent year to the extent this ATR Program is continued as set forth below), the employer will arrange, to the greatest extent reasonably possible, for interviews between ATRs and schools with applicable license-area vacancies within the district or borough to which the ATR is assigned. After October 15, ATRs may continue, at the DOE’s discretion, to be sent to interviews within the district or borough for applicable license-area vacancies. An ATR that declines or fails to report to an interview, upon written notice of it, two or more times without good cause shall be treated as having voluntarily resigned his/her employment. 

If you miss two interviews, you're done.  Who documents whether someone showed up or not? 
When an ATR is selected by a principal for a permanent placement in either the district or borough, the ATR shall be assigned to fill the vacancy in his/her license area, be placed on the school’s table of organization and take his/her rightful place in seniority order. Schools may continue to hire ATRs on a provisional basis consistent with existing agreements between the parties. An ATR that fails to accept and appear for an assignment within two (2) work days of receiving written notice of the assignment without good cause shall be treated as having voluntarily resigned his/her employment.

Two work days to show up for an assignment or you have resigned.  I guess email notice is written notice.  Good luck if a computer breaks down.  There are so many botched communications with the DOE and now we are responsible. For example, sometimes a principal wants to keep someone and tells them to stay put but the officials placing people have a different idea.  Who are we supposed to listen to? 

Any school that selects an ATR for a permanent placement will not have that ATR’s salary included for the purpose of average teacher salary calculation. 

For how long?
 
ATRs in Districts 75 and 79 shall be sent for interviews only in the same borough, within their respective district, as the school to which they were previously assigned.
  
ATRs in BASIS shall be sent for interviews only in the same borough as the school to which they were previously assigned.

Assignments of ATRs
After October 15, 2014, ATRs, except those who have been penalized (as a result of a finding of guilt or by stipulation) in conjunction with §3020-a charges with a suspension of 30 days or more or a fine of $2,000 or more, will be given a temporary provisional assignment to a school with a vacancy in their license area where available. The DOE, at its sole discretion, may choose to assign ATRs to a temporary provisional assignment who have been penalized (as a result of a finding of guilt or by stipulation) in conjunction with §3020-a charges with a suspension of 30 days or more or a fine of $2,000 or more. 

DOE discretion on whether or not to assign someone who was not dismissed in a 3020A hearing. Some ATRs won't be assigned.  For everyone else, whatever happened to the so called mutual consent doctrine that never existed but is touted?

The DOE shall not be required to send more than one ATR at a time to a school per vacancy for a temporary provisional assignment. These assignments will first be made within district and then within borough.  For purposes of the ATR Program, ATRs shall also be given temporary provisional assignments to cover leaves and long term absences within their license area within district and then within borough.  ATRs in Districts 75 and 79 shall be given temporary provisional assignments only in the same borough, within their respective district, as the school to which they were previously assigned.  
 
All temporary provisional assignments for an ATR in BASIS will be within the same borough as the school to which they were previously assigned.

It is understood that at any time after a temporary provisional assignment is made, a principal can remove the ATR from this assignment and the ATR will be returned to the ATR pool and be subject to the terms and conditions of employment then applicable to ATRs pursuant to the parties’ collective bargaining agreement(s).

We can be removed from a school at the whim of the principal.

If a principal removes an ATR from an assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area because of problematic behavior as described below and the ATR is provided with a signed writing by a supervisor describing the problematic behavior, this writing can be introduced at an expedited §3020-a hearing for ATRs who have completed their probationary periods, as set forth below.

Problematic behavior is a very vague term even when it is described below.

If, within a school year or consecutively across school years, two different principals remove an ATR who is on a temporary provisional assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area for problematic behavior and provide the ATR with a signed writing describing the problematic behavior, the ATR shall be subject to discipline up to and including discharge as provided below. The ATR will be returned to the ATR pool pending completion of the expedited ATR §3020-a procedure set forth below.

Two letters documenting problematic behavior from two principals within two years and we are up before an expedited termination hearing.

An ATR who has been placed back in the ATR pool will be in the rotation to schools unless he/she is again offered a temporary provisional assignment at another school.  Rotational assignments or assignments to a school (as opposed to a vacancy in his/her license area) shall not form the basis of an incident of problematic behavior as described herein.

What?

To the extent that the provisions of this section conflict with the provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement dated June 27, 2011, the provisions of this section shall govern.

ATR §3020-a Procedure
If, within a school year or consecutively across school years, an ATR has been removed from a temporary provisional assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area by two different principals because of asserted problematic behavior, a neutral arbitrator from a panel of arbitrators jointly selected for this purpose (the panel presently consisting of Martin F. Scheinman, Howard Edelman and Mark Grossman) shall convene a §3020-a hearing as soon as possible.

They already have the hanging judges ready to execute us.

Based on the written documentation described above and such other documentary and/or witness evidence as the employer or the respondent may submit, the hearing officer shall determine whether the ATR has demonstrated a pattern of problematic behavior. For purposes of this program, problematic behavior means behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations established for professionals working in schools and a pattern of problematic behavior means two or more instances in a vacancy in the ATR’s license area of problematic behavior within a school year or consecutively across school years. Hearings under this provision shall not exceed one full day absent a showing of good cause and the hearing officer shall issue a written decision within 15 days of the hearing date.
The parties agree that in order to accomplish the purpose of establishing an expedited §3020-a process, the following shall serve as the exclusive process for §3020-a hearings for ATRs that have been charged based on a pattern of problematic behavior in accordance with this agreement. 
- The ATR shall have ten (10) school days to request a hearing upon receipt of the §3020-a charges;

-  At the same time as the ATR is charged, the Board (DOE) will notify the UFT as to where the ATR is assigned at the time charges are served; - The employer shall provide the Respondent all evidence to be used in the hearing no more than five (5) school days after the employer receives the Respondent’s request for a hearing; - Within five (5) school days of receipt of the employer’s evidence, the Respondent shall provide the employer with any evidence the Respondent knows at that time will be used in the hearing; - The hearing shall be scheduled within five to ten (5-10) school days after the exchange of evidence is complete; - The hearing time shall be allocated evenly between the parties, with time used for opening statements, closing statements and cross- examination allocated to party doing the opening statement, closing statement or cross-examination and with time for breaks allocated to the party requesting the break; - The hearing officer shall issue a decision within 15 days of the hearing date. 
 
For the purposes of charges based upon a pattern of problematic behavior under this section only, if the DOE proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the ATR has demonstrated a pattern of problematic behavior the hearing officer shall impose a penalty under the just cause standard up to and including discharge. 

All hearing officer fees in excess of the SED rate shall be shared equally by the parties. 
It is understood that allegations of conduct which would fall within the definition of sexual misconduct or serious misconduct as defined in the applicable collective bargaining agreements shall be addressed through the existing process in Article 21(G) of the Teachers CBA and corresponding articles of other UFT-BOE CBAs.   
 
Term 
This agreement with respect to the absent teacher reserve (referred to above as the “ATR Program”) shall run through the end of the 2015-16 school year.  At the end of that term, the parties must agree to extend the ATR Program and absent agreement, the parties shall return to the terms and conditions for ATR assignment as they exist in the 2007-2009 collective bargaining agreement(s) and memoranda of agreement entered into prior to ratification of this Agreement.  
The parties agree and understand that the due process protections provided in this provision shall modify the provisions of Education Law § 3020-a and any other agreements between the parties.  

We can now finally see the education part of the Memorandum of Agreement.  All I can say is that it is difficult and convoluted reading and I am outraged over the weakening of tenure for Absent Teacher Reserve.  I truly am in fear for my job as my school will close in June so I will soon be an ATR.

The Executive Board voted for the contract tonight without seeing it but the New Action people asked to table it and then voted against the contract they never saw.

I am posting below in its entirety the email President Mulgrew sent out earlier today.

Two points are clear from reading this:

1-The UFT is going to argue that the city had no money in spite of major surpluses. Mulgrew stated directly, "The cupboard was bare."  That is difficult to swallow when each day we hear about the city surplus growing.

2-The retro money will be compounded but without any interest. Some have said that there would be interest but it wasn't mentioned by the President in this email.



Dear James,

I'm pleased to report that the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group representing New York City's 350,000 municipal workers, voted overwhelmingly today to approve the health care savings program.

The city and its municipal unions will convene a joint citywide healthcare committee that will work collaboratively and transparently to identify ways to deliver health care more efficiently and streamline administration of benefits for all city workers.  All the municipal union presidents feel confident that this program will meet the agreed-upon savings targets without diminishing city workers' health care benefits.

With the health care piece in place, we can now move forward with our contract ratification process.  Our previous mayor tried to make it impossible for the next administration to give educators the raises they deserve.  Michael Bloomberg set aside no money in the city budget to pay for the two 4 percents for 2009 and 2010 that other city workers received.  Over the five long years that Bloomberg refused to negotiate the cost of paying out those raises ballooned.  That's the budget that Mayor Bill de Blasio inherited. The cupboard was bare.

Despite that virtually empty labor reserve, we figured out a way forward with our new mayor, who was a willing and respectful negotiating partner. By agreeing to stretch out the retroactive payments and raises, we made our members whole and at the same time won significant raises in the contract's later years.  Without the delay, we could not have achieved either.  At the end of the day, UFT members will get more money in their pockets.

The phase-in of the retroactive raises has no bearing on the final amount of retro payments you'll receive.  All in-service and retired members will receive 100 percent of the money they are entitled to, compounded back to Nov. 1, 2009, by 2020.

The way this contract handles the retroactive raises is not unusual.  What is unusual is the recklessness of the previous mayor, who ignored the city's largest union local and allowed such an enormous retroactive debt to build up.  Bloomberg's plan failed: We now have a proposed contract that pays members every dollar they would have earned if they had received their raises when other city workers did.

Here's the bottom line: With this landmark proposed settlement, UFT members will get every penny they earned and a total of 18 percent in pay increases over a nine-year period that includes the worst recession this country has experienced since the Great Depression.

We will be posting the Memorandum of Agreement, once it's finalized, and additional information, including FAQs, in our special Contract 2014 section.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

We thought we would be able address some of the many questions that have been raised about the proposed new UFT contract but it will have to wait until Tuesday.  I spoke to a UFT officer a little while ago and he told me the official Memorandum of Agreement (actual wording of the changes to our contract) will not be available until tomorrow. 

The UFT told Chapter Leaders and Delegates they would post the MOA at UFT.org as soon as it is ready. 

Since the UFT Executive Board is meeting tonight, I guess they will vote on the document without looking at it the same way the Negotiating Committee did last Thursday.

I would not be surprised if they approve it without looking at it because the Executive Board is made up primarily of members of the Unity Caucus: the invitation only group that has run the UFT since the 1960s.  To be accepted into Unity, one must sign a pledge to support the positions of the caucus in public and union forums.  They allow no dissent. 

After the Executive Board approves the contract, it will go before representatives from the schools called the Delegate Assembly. The DA - made up of all of the Chapter Leaders and Delegates - will meet at the midtown Manhattan Hilton on Wednesday to vote on the contract. The DA is also made up mostly of people who have joined Unity as it is the ticket to union jobs and free trips to union conventions. Members should try to find out if their Chapter Leader is a member of Unity because if they are, then they are obligated to support the contract.

In the next couple of weeks an army of union officials will be invading the schools to sell the contract. UFT members need to understand that these people work for the union and are accountable to President Mulgrew.  They are there to push the contract and members must not be afraid to ask them detailed questions.

Ultimately, the membership has the power to either say yes or no.  If we say yes, we live with what we voted for.  If we say no, it does not mean a strike.  It means we think we can do better. However, just saying we think we can do better is not enough.  Members will need to mobilize themselves to get a decent contract.

For further information, go to the Movement of Rank and File Educators' website to read Mike Shirtzer's view.

People can also go to NYC Educator to hear from Francis Lewis High School Chapter Leader Arthur Goldstein.

My former colleague at Jamaica is the blogger called Chaz and there is also Perdido Street School.

There are many other bloggers and social media where you can turn to for opinion including the UFT facebook page.

.

Four members of the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) sat through a propaganda love fest this afternoon as UFT Chief Financial Officer Dave Hickey, Staff Director Leroy Barr and then President Michael Mulgrew explained our new contract to rousing applause from the Unity/New Action faithful on the negotiating committee. Now that the contract is done there is no need to be confidential.

I asked the President to show us a copy of the Memorandum of Agreement but there was none.  However, the UFT machine is spinning faster than any Wascomat washing machine.

UFT members in the new contract will get the 4 % + 4% salary increases that other city workers unions received back in 2009 and 2010, but we won't see the money until 2015-2020.

For the seven years from 2011 to 2018, where the UFT will set the pattern for raises that other city unions will now follow, we will be getting a total of 10% in raises for seven years plus a $1,000 signing bonus.  That works out to less than 1.5% per year.

Specifically, this is how the CFO crunched the numbers:

2009-2010 = 4% raise
2010-2011 = 4% raise
2011-2012 = 0% raise but we will get a $1,000 signing bonus if we ratify the contract.
Nov 2012- April 2013 = 0% raise
May 1, 2013 = 1% raise
May 1, 2014 = 1% raise
May 1, 2015 = 1% raise
May 1, 2016 = 1.5% raise
May 1, 2017 = 2.5% raise
May 1, 2018 = 3.0% raise *Update February 14, 2015-This final 3% raise will be deferred to June 16, 2018 to help pay for retiree lump sum payments.*
Total: 18% (compounded it will be a little more)

For those of you expecting to go back in the fall and at least have the 4%+4% added to your pay, forget it.

The 4 % + 4% that other unions received in 2009-10 will not be added to our pay until the increases kick in one year at a time starting in 2015.  Here is how the 8% will be added in:

May 1, 2015 = 2%
May 1, 2016 = 2%
May 1, 2017 = 2%
May 1, 2018 = 2%

All we get added to our salaries now if we ratify is 1% for 2013 followed by 1% for 2014 and the $1,000 bonus.

The 8% won't be added to our salaries fully until 2018 and the retroactive money the city owes us since 2009 won't be coming soon either.  Here is the schedule for the retroactive payments:

October 1, 2015- 12.5% lump sum
October 1, 2016 - Nothing
October 1, 2017 - 12.5% lump sum
October 1, 2018 - 25% lump sum
October 1, 2019 - 25% lump sum
October 1, 2020 - 25% lump sum

We will not be made "whole" for Bloomberg denying us the raises that other city unions got 5 years ago until 2020. 

Thanks to inflation, Retro delayed is really Retro denied!

UPDATE-Anyone who Retires Before July 1, 2014 Wins Big
The winners in this deal are anyone who retired from 2009 through now and anyone else who retires prior to July 1, 2014.  They will get all of their retro pay calculated and get it at once.  People who already retired will have their pensions recalculated as well as receiving retro payments for the time they worked. 

At the Negotiating Committee they said retirees up to June 30, 2015 get retroactive upon retirement, but this is what is on the UFT website now.

Retroactive money for the 4 percent raises in 2009 and 2010: Those who retire on or before June 30, 2014 will receive full retroactive pay for time worked in a lump sum. Those who retire after June 30, 2014 and employees who have been continuously employed and are in active service as of the date of the payout will receive retroactive pay in five lump-sum payments of roughly 12.5 percent in October 2015, 12.5 percent in October 2017, 25 percent in October 2018, 25 percent in October 2019 and 25 percent in October 2020.

Anyone who retires July 1, 2014 or after will get the deferred payments the same way as active personnel and will be waiting until 2020 to be made "whole".

Only people who resigned or were terminated won't get retro.

Top salary now $100,049 will crawl up to $119,565 by May (updated to June) of 2018.

President Mulgrew arrived at around 5:20 pm after hanging around at the mayor's press conference and here are some of the other details he let out.

Some union had to settle first and it was us.

Here is a breakdown of some of the non-economic issues.

Evaluations:
We will go down from being rated on 22 Danielson components to 8.  (No word on the number of observations.)  Artifacts are out.

On Measures of Students Learning if we want, we will only be graded based on students we teach.

Paperwork:
The DOE and UFT agreed to set up (yet another) Committee on excessive paperwork.  This one will be half UFT and half DOE with a mediator.  Cases can also be taken to arbitration.

Extended Time
No additional time added to the day. The extended time, faculty, grade/department conferences, open school night time will be reconfigured.  We will work two extra open school evenings which will go from 2.5 to 3 hours.

There will be a default schedule on how to use the extended time each week and preapproved School Based Options.

Multi session, District 75 and 79 schools will keep their current time schedules.

Curriculum
Each core subject will have a curriculum that we must use.  Unit plans will be no longer than a page.

Merit Pay
There will be a career ladder i.e. merit pay.
Ambassador teachers will earn $7,500 more to visit other schools.
Model teachers will earn $7,500 more to be model teachers at their own schools.
Master teachers will earn $20,000 to help other teachers.

PROSE Innovative Schools
Schools can opt in with a 65% vote to cancel major parts of the contract.  This can be up to 200 schools.

ATRs
Absent Teacher Reserves must show up for interviews.  ATRs will be sent to vacancies in schools.  There will be no termination for time in the ATR pool but there is an offer of a severance package.

If two principals document unprofessional behavior, the documentation can be used for a special 3020A process just for ATRS.  This will not be for performance and it will be a one day hearing which could lead to termination.

Schools will be forgiven for ATR salaries.

Bonus
$5,000 will go to teachers who go to a hard to staff school.

Healthcare
There is a healthcare cost savings plan from the Municipal Labor Committee that must be approved. (We don't know how the cost savings will be achieved but we will keep our basic plans for free.)

Validators
For teachers rated ineffective, the validators sent in the second year to validate an ineffective rating will now be educators: teachers and administrators.

Where is the Memorandum of Agreement?
I asked the president when we would be seeing the full Memorandum of Agreement in writing.  He said he didn't know but Staff Director Leroy Barr said it would be out soon.  Mulgrew asked for a motion to recommend the contract for approval.  I abstained as I would never vote on something I haven't seen.  The Unity faithful followed their caucus obligatons and all voted in the affirmative while the New Action people went along with Unity too.  The other MORE members abstained silently during the vote but I screamed out for my abstention to be counted.


VERY BRIEF ANALYSIS
I leave it to you to decide what we should do.  I tried to keep the adjectives to a minimum in this piece and just report what was said.

We couldn't lose on the 4% + 4% because of pattern bargaining (one city union settles on a percentage salary increase and all the unions follow that pattern) but allowing the city stretch it out so that money we were owed since 2009 won't be fully paid back until 2020 really lets the city off the hook.

As for setting the pattern of 10% over 7 years, this is an abysmally low pattern to establish (we did better monetarily under the anti union Mayors Bloomberg and Guilliani).  I can understand why other labor unions in the city are angry with Mulgrew, particularly when it is considered how much surplus revenue the city has.  We should have been able to achieve non monetary gains for loaning the city our money and setting a very low pattern but instead we surrendered as usual. 

The devil will be in the details on the ATR agreement but I see this contract as a real missed opportunity.  Here's hoping the members will ignore the Unity spin cycle and see through it.