NY Times: De Blasio Seeks Nine Year Teachers Contract

Oy:

The de Blasio administration, seeking to be generous to its allies in labor without jeopardizing New York City’s finances, is pushing for what would be the longest-ever contract with the teachers’ union: a nine-year deal that would let the city stretch out potentially huge retroactive pay increases.

 

In intense negotiations over the past week, people briefed on the talks say, the city has asserted that it cannot afford the $3.4 billion in retroactive raises that the teachers’ union is demanding for two of the four and a half years it has been working without a contract — let alone for the other years.

 

The administration’s dealings with the teachers’ union have become all the more tricky, and pivotal, because whatever deal the teachers receive could set a pattern for the city’s other municipal unions, which want billions in retroactive raises of their own.

 

...

 

A nine-year deal with the teachers’ union would actually date to Nov. 1, 2009, when its contract expired. But it would stretch another four and a half years from now into the future — after Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, would face re-election in 2017.

 

Indeed, the city’s negotiations with the teachers could ultimately expand to include officials from other unions in hopes of forging a kind of ambitious grand bargain with municipal labor.

 

...

 

The teachers’ union is insisting that it is owed that much because other municipal unions, including District Council 37, received 4 percent pay increases in 2009 and 2010. It is also pressing for pay increases for the contract years since.

 

City negotiators, people briefed on the talks say, argue that they simply do not have the money for all the raises the unions are seeking. To make more money available, the city is pressing the teachers and other unions to agree to major savings in health-insurance costs, like filling prescriptions through the mail.

 

But union negotiators are resisting any agreement on health savings until disputes over back pay are resolved for the teachers and several smaller unions, including principals and nurses at city hospitals.

I know this - if the UFT agrees to break the pattern of 4%/4% from 2009/2010, I am not going to be a happy camper.

I know something else - if they agree to a nine year contract and lock us into a destructive evaluation system, I am not going to be a happy camper.

The way I'm reading this, the UFT is holding fast to the 2009/2010 pattern.

It had better stay that way.

The Times article says they talked about the evaluation system and the ATR pool during the preliminary negotiations.

The evaluation system had better get worked out in negotiations as well - as much as can be worked out within the confines of the state law, at any rate.

And let's put the ATR's back to work - there's a way to save money right off the bat.

I'll have more later on all of this.