Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Thursday, May 1, 2014

At First Glance, A Disastrous Contract Deal Made By Michael Mulgrew, UFT

A few years of zeroes, they threw the ATR's under the bus, they just enshrined merit pay and they are set to allow 200 schools to operate without UFT contractual rules, allowing for longer schools days/years and other "innovations":

The new contract would begin, retroactively, on November 1, 2009, and provide retroactive four percent pay raises for 2009 and 2010–comparable to the increases granted to many of the city’s other workers under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Teachers will then receive a 10 percent raise over seven years, plus a $1,000 bonus, beginning in May 2013 and extending through October 31, 2018, with workers receiving an added 1 percent in 2013, 2014 and 2015, 1.5 percent in 2016, 2.5 percent in May 2017 and 3 percent in 2018. The terms must still be approved by the union’s full membership.

The retroactive portion of the raises will amount to at least $3.4 billion, including pension costs, according to Doug Turetsky of the city’s nonpartisan Independent Budget Office.

In exchange, the union has agreed to more than $1 billion in health care savings, according to the administration. The savings would be achieved not through increased contributions, however, but through measures including an audit to make sure only those eligible are receiving benefits and centralized drug purchases. If the same reforms were extended across the workforce, the city claims they would yield $3.4 billion in savings–”effectively bending the curve of rising healthcare costs for the first time.”

The deal also includes reforms to various rules, including changes to the “Absent Teacher Reserve pool,” where teachers are sent if they can’t find work in city classrooms. The new contract will include rules that allow the city to permanently fire teachers if, for instance, they are twice returning to the pool for poor performance by principals. The rules also expand the definition of sexual misconduct, which will make it easier for the city to fire teachers for actions like inappropriate touching or texting, officials said.

The new rules also pave the way for merit pay for high quality teachers, creating new categories of “Ambassador” ” Model” and “Master” teachers, who will earn between $7,000 and $20,000 more a year. A new “Hard to Staff School Differential” would also pay teachers at the city’s 150 toughest schools an extra $5,000 a year.

As part of the deal, the UFT has also agreed to allow 200 schools to operate outside of existing DOE regulations and union rules, allowing the city to experiment with a longer school year and school day, among other changes.

The deal also requires twice as many parent-teacher conferences each year, and changes to teacher evaluations.

I don't see much to like here - who gets to be the "innovative" schools with the longer school days/years?

Is there more pay for that gig?

We know many principals want nothing to do with veteran ATR's, certainly because they cost more, but also because they're not as easy to control as younger teachers.

By giving ATR's two shots at a permanent gig or subjecting them to termination, they have essentially thrown most of them under the bus.

And what exactly will this merit pay proposal be based on, the one that pays up to $20K for being a "Master"?

Will this be based on the current evaluation system, which is a @#$%ing mess?

No wonder the other unions were reported to be pissed about Mulgrew's dealings - the UFT took zeroes after the old pattern (which is the 8% for 2009 and 2010) and didn't get another salary increase until May 2013.

That means little retro for the other unions, since most of the years they went without a contract will become zeroes in the pattern set by the UFT.

Wow - I will look some more at this deal, but what I see in the details so far is an absolute disaster.

No wonder the PBA declared an impasse with the city today - they didn't want to take the same shit deal Mulgrew is hailing.

Alas, it seems the UFT will set the pattern and all the other unions will get shit deals too.

I often say if you're a betting person, it pays to bet the worst possible outcome when Mulgarten and the Unity crew are handling things.

It looks like even with a fairly friendly mayor on the other side of the negotiation table, Mulgarten and the Unity crew screwed us - and the other unions in the city too.

That's why other union leaders are distancing themselves from this deal:

“I was surprised at how well the administration’s negotiators did considering the hand they were dealt,” said one labor source, who said the city had won “an incredible amount of leverage to win work rule reform, more healthcare givebacks, a change in pension payments, whatever’s on their agenda” with other unions.

And some were already trying to distance themselves by pushing against a one-size-fits-all approach.

“Every union’s members have different needs,” said Al O’Leary, a spokesman for police union chief Patrick Lynch, asserting that a deal “that satisfies one union’s needs may not satisfy the needs of other unions.”

I'm thinking it's time for a new UFT slogan:

UFT: NOT JUST SCREWING TEACHERS ANYMORE

64 comments:

  1. I KNEW IT! I said it last night. This is either going to be a good deal or a crappy deal. Looks like it is a crappy deal! What happened to the 37 1/2 minutes being swapped for PD? What about Circular 6 duties being eliminated? This deal sucks and every other union is going to hate the UFT and the teachers who will probably go along and ratify this contract. As for me. I am voting NO!!!

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    1. You were right. They gave up on merit pay, the ATR's, and made 10% of city schools essentially "non-contractual". All for 1.3% a year over 7 years (excluding the money from the old pattern that all the other unions got.)

      Yeah, not a good deal in my opinion.

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  2. This contract reeks! I am not an ATR but a union member and Mike sold them down the drain. Where is the brotherhood/sisterhood. How could he stand up there and smile?More PTC and PD? For what? In the end we are only getting a 2% percent raise every year if you average it out. I don't think it is worth it. I will vote No!

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    1. 1.3% a year over 7 years for the part of the contract that was not part of the old pattern.

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  3. This is an absolute disaster of a contract. How could we agree to almost no money, and TONS of givebacks? The UFT may have just signed their own death warrant, by selling out the ATR's and basically adding 200 new charter schools to the city. Another win for the plutocrats and the likes of Eva Moskowitz and Cambel Brown, and once again us poor teachers are royally screwed. If teachers actually buy this as a good deal and approve it 90% (as I am sure they will) I have lost all faith in my profession.

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  4. I have been a teacher for 29 years in the NYC public school system --- I am just putting this out there- In all my time I have never met a UFT member who ever vote yes on a contract. I suggest we FOIL the ballots after the election. I doubt it will be a fair election. Come to think of it I never met anyone who ever voted for Randi or Mike? Have any of you?

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    1. I think the contract will pass pretty easily without Unity cheating. But its possible the other unions could put a monkey wrench in the whole thing if they don't agree to the health care changes. That is subject to Municipal Labor Committee approval.

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    2. I voted no to the 2005 contract. I also never voted for Randi and never would BUT I did vote for Mulgrew and although I know he's not too popular with most of the education bloggers I actually like the guy. In my opinion, there are major differences between Randi and Mulgrew. First off, Mulgrew was a REAL teacher who then became a Chapter Leader before becoming UFT President. Randi, on the other hand, was a lawyer who for whatever reason was tapped to become UFT President. She just doesn't get it and I find it embarassing that she is now the President of our the AFT. She's a terrible spokesperson. At the UFT Spring Conference last weekend she got a lukewarm reception at best. I and most of the people at the tables near me didn't even applaud when she was introduced. She needs to go join her lawyer buddy Joel Klein in nowhere land.

      Mary

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  5. The changes in work rules bear amazing similarity to the "historic" Newark contract. Merit pay in my view is rigged by administrators as they hand pick students for their pet teachers. I am working an extended day and it sucks. I also did two weeks in the summer and four Saturdays. Poor Cami did not earn all of her bonus this year because all of these innovations did not result in miracle test score gains. Vote no NYC. Vote no.

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  6. The more I read these comments, the more I laugh. In 2018 I will be earning top pay at 118K with another 20 in per session/summer school. I mean pushing 140K and really enjoying it. I really feel for the people on these blogs who hate this and hate that, etc/etc. You guys are really amazing. The deal sucks? Really? Tell that to theocracies in Chicago whose pensions are being pulled out from them. Tell it to the teachers in Newark who are battling to stay afloat. Tell it to the teachers out west where they have been stripped of collective bargaining rights and more. You wanna bitch about this contract? You people are nuts!! No wonder why the majority of commenters on here are ATR's, so negative. The contract is a WIN. What did you want, a 43% raise? You'd still be bitching about something. Pathetic bastards!!!!!

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    1. Gee, I can't imagine why I would listen to the other union leaders who want to know why the UFT toos such a crap deal when I can listen to a fine person like yourself explain to me how this is so much better than Wisconsin.

      But let me quote once again what one labor source thinks about this deal:

      “I was surprised at how well the administration’s negotiators did considering the hand they were dealt,” said one labor source, who said the city had won “an incredible amount of leverage to win work rule reform, more healthcare givebacks, a change in pension payments, whatever’s on their agenda” with other unions.

      Let me also note that the deal allows the city top operate 10% of the schools without the UFT contract, subjects ATR's to termination hearings after two "trial placements" and enshrines merit pay based upon who knows what mechanism of award.

      Not a good deal in my opinion, considering the leverage they had.

      But I am under no illusion that it won't pass.

      I suspect it will be rolled through with a 90%+ vote.

      I'll await more details before I make an announcement against the contract, but as of now, I don't like what I see and I have laid out the reasons why in the post above.

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    2. No you won't The " retro" is being paid through 2020 not 2018. It wouldn't be as horrible if our pay was increased the 8% upon ratification. But our pay is not being bumped up for the two years of 4%. That money too is being paid over 6 years. I'm not as good a "prognosticator" as you but it it too long to wait for money we should have been paid 5 years ago.

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    3. There will always be people who just have to complain for the sake of complaining. I am sure that if the contract said we only teach one day a week for one hour and the salary was going up immediately to $200,000, there would still be some teacher out there complaining it wasn't good enough.

      I do have some questions and some reservations, but overall, it is good enough for me to consider staying on an extra year for that last raise to give my pension one last bump up after what will be 32 years in the system in 2018.

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    4. It gets worse the more details you get. Yeah, I heard the same thing. So basically 4% for next year + $1000. The rest stretched out over the next six years. Not quite the nice deal the above anon claims it is.

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    5. Anonymous 5:27

      You're such a zero....you just posted the same argument on Chaz's web page. Why don't you get back into your hole and beat off.

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  7. If Bloomberg were still Mayor we would have gotten NOTHING, nevermind retroactive pay from 2009. I think giving us 4% and 4% retro from 2009 and 2010 is fair and should have happened years ago as part of pattern bargaining. Yes, the following years are a bit weak, but on top of the 8% it's not awful. I can understand the other unions being upset because there's not much of an increase from 2012 until now and since the other unions already got their 4% and 4% for 2009 and 2010 there's not too much of an increase available for them if they follow pattern bargaining. That said, the other unions need to understand that we haven't had a contract since 2009 so to us it's not bad. Right now I'm pretty happy but there's a lot that remains to be seen.

    I want to see a good plan to place ATRs and hope that they will be treated fairly. I'd heard rumors of supplementing their salaries if principals selected them for positions. I also think getting rid of the "fair funding formula" or whatever policy it is that makes the schools pay the actual salary and acts as a disincentive for schools to hire experienced teachers has to go. And as much as I hate to say this, there are a few, definitely not all or even most but SOME ATRs that really need to leave the profession... they're horrible teachers and just complete weirdos and we all know that we would not want them teaching our own children.

    I didn't hear anything about extra Parent-Teacher conferences. It would be nice if they give teachers a say in scheduling these conferences because we get home so late from the evening conferences that they shouldn't take place early in the week and they definitely shoul not take place the same week the clocks spring ahead. I doubt most parents want to come in 4 times a year. Two times seems adequate to me at most 3. Maybe they can reconsider that.

    Anyway, for the most part I like what I hear and hope to hear more.

    Mary

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    1. I think you're right, that unions that already got the 8% from Bloomberg in the last pattern will view this differently than teachers who didn't get the 8%.

      Let's separate the 8% from the old pattern from the 10% that is part of the new pattern in this deal.

      Essentially for the 10% over 7 years, they made ATR's subject to termination after two gigs, will transform 10% of the city's schools into "non-contractual" schools (with longer days/years), and approved merit pay (based on God knows what, since APPR is a joke.)

      I dunno, seems like an awful lot to give back for 1.3% a year.

      And as I noted in the post above, the other unions think so too.

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  8. My question may seem silly to some of you..... In terms of the retroactive (09 & 10) being paid out starting in 2015. If ratified does our current salary change because of the 4%,4% of 2009 & 2010 and the retroactive payment is disbursed separately? OR does the salary schedule stay in tact?

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    1. I would think the salary schedule as currently constituted would change, yes. It should reflect the 8% + the 1% for May 2013 + the 1% for 2014 (which I think is supposed to kick in May 2014.)

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    2. Still waiting to see some concrete numbers either out of the city or the UFT. As of 8:36 PM, nothing yet.

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    3. Hearing now that the most of the adjustments to salary steps for the 2009-2010 period won't come for years. Yeah - years. Still waiting for concrete numbers - but I don't think people are going to be happy when they see the step ladder.

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    4. 1% for 2013 and 1% for 2014 will be added to the salary scale now, and we get the $1000 bonus. The 4+4 from 2009-2011 will be added to the salary scale in four yearly 2% installments starting in 2015. Retroactive will be paid in five installments starting in 2015, skipping 2016 and then in yearly installments until 2020. I would love to tell you about the fine print but we did not get a Memorandum of Agreement at the negotiating committee today. I abstained as my mom raised me to want to see something in writing before accepting or rejecting it.

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  9. Great contract. 18%! I will take it. The older teachers will complain till they retire. Ha!

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    1. I have little doubt it will overwhelmingly pass. But the MLC can still throw a monkey wrench in the whole deal by not agreeing to the health care changes.

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. I agree with you on all three points. The 40% should not trump the 60%. And yes, fewer components will make our administrators jobs a bit easier but has little effect on us. Also the submission of artifacts was optional and could help boost teachers' overall rating (but by a relatively small amount) so again it helps make administrators jobs easier but doesn't really help teachers at all.

      Mary

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    2. The biggest concern for me is, why wasn't the number of observations decreased? That's a huge concern going forward for me. 4-6 is way too many.

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  11. To Perdido Street Schools ... I'm having a little technical problem with your site. It lets me preview my comment but won't let me edit it. (I wanted to change administrators to administrators') It also won't let me just dump my comment and retype it, even when close the window and reopen it. Any suggestions?

    Mary

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    1. If there's a comment you want me to delete, Mary, I can do so. Let me know below this comment which one you want deleted and you can retype whatever comment you intended to make.

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  12. I can't believe that nobody is mentioning that Circular 6 duties have not been eliminated? Didn't the Chancellor want "more educational time"? That could have been accomplished by getting rid of Circular 6. And as somebody mentioned above, we are all one step away from being ATR's. What if Bloombucks runs again in a few years and wins? He will shut down a ton of schools and make a few thousand teachers ATR's and then instruct principals to run them out of the system. This new contract will pit teacher against teacher and the f*cking UFT agreed to this.

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    1. I guess not all of us have problems with Circular 6 or maybe I'm just not understanding how it works at other schools.. At my elementary school we use it for weekly grade meetings. Granted we have to give most of them up for coaches to give us PD but we get to keep one a month to work on what we think is important. What would we get in place of that?

      Mary

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    2. Hard to know how this is going to work. Word beforehand had been the 37.5 minutes would be restructured, but looks like it's up to schools to make changes that they want. I suspect in my school, that means keeping it all as is and we continue to go to the "suggested" focus groups.

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    3. RE: Mary: Circular 6 duties in elementary schools means that teachers do lunch duty, recess duty, bus duty, for one per out of the day. If Circular 6 were eliminated, teachers could teach an extra per a day. (Those duties would be done by school aids as was done back in the 90's)

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    4. Except so many aides have been laid off, had their hours cut, etc. because principals want to use that money for other things.

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    5. Well Anonymous, in my elementary school hardly any teachers do any of those duties. Our school aides cover lunch/recess. We're on an 8 period day. We get 5 preps and 5 lunch periods a week plus one period per week where most of us have common planning time.

      The last time I had to do lunch duty was back in the early 90s when I was a 2nd year teacher working at Bushwick HS in Brooklyn. I still have nightmares about that! lol

      Mary

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  13. Michael FiorilloMay 1, 2014 at 6:52 PM

    I feel like such a chump. After years of being rightfully cynical of Unity Caucus leadership of the UFT, I let my guard down, thinking, "After everything, they've got to do right by us this time." I let my hopes rise a bit, thinking that at least they'd come through with some money, and minimal concessions.

    Silly, foolish me.

    The UFT mis-leadership did absolutely nothing as public school facilities and budgets were handed to the charter industry by Cuomo in the recent budget, which will lead to membership losses as they expand. Now they gut the contract for 10% of the remaining public schools, marking the first step in turning them, and eventually the whole system into the charter sweatshop model.

    Mulgrew's record as President of the UFT is utterly appalling: mayoral control 2.0, a de facto endorsement of Bloomberg's 3rd term, not just acceptance but support and propagandizing for Common Core, APPR, Danielson, and now this, not just screwing over teachers (again), but other municipals workers, as well.

    Mulgrew, like Weingarten, really is One of Them.





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    1. Would bet that the cops, firemen, sanitation guys, et al. would love to have a talk with him.

      As for teachers, we remain sheeple, happy to accept the crumbs from the table in return for our crumbling contractual protections.

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  14. If it's any consolation today is the feast day of St. Joseph the worker.

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    1. Haven't you heard? St Joseph the Worker is facing a 3020a after being bounced from his second (and last) "trial placement"!

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  15. A historic mistake. This contract is extremely divisive. It will lead to the end of pattern bargaining and the demise of trade unionism. Our remaining hope is that the contract is vetoed by the Municipal Labor Commitee. An epic disaster. As far as work rules go, it is demoralizing and inequitable. Read the fine print. Let those who vote for this piece of trash, beware! The police and fire department will not respond to your emergency calls. Heck, given the 911 system , they might be able to anyway!

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    1. Mulgrew has shown himself the equal of Weingarten when it comes to destroying the union - but now he's aiming at the others too with this crap contract. BA showed what they thought about it with their impasse call today.

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  16. So, what did the impasse arbitrator recommend for the contract settlement?

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    1. I don't know - and I doubt the union will be forthcoming about that.

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  17. I don't even understand where the nonsense in this proposal is coming from.A "raise package" below the probable inflation rate and multiple issues that I have never heard a single teacher identify as being important to them. I know in the past the union hired a survey company to get teacher input. On the management side was any of this junk mentioned during the campaign. Whose concerns are these? Is there some kind of permanent government at City Hall? other than the 2years of 4% increases this reads like a Bloomberg proposal. The membership is concerned with bread and butter issues related to pay and security and we get a deal larded with junk. This reads as farce. The nations largest local teachers group is now on board with merit pay? Importing" solutions" from Newark? Hoping the MLC vetoes this and we go back to the drawing board.

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  18. I work in a high school in Brooklyn. What in the world is Circular 6? I've heard if it but have no idea what it is.

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  19. I have a question about the reconfigured workday that's shown here http://www.uft.org/proposed-contract/reconfigured-workday

    Specifically the section that says:

    "If schools choose not to undertake an SBO vote on how to use the time, it will be divided this way:

    On Mondays, an 80-minute block of time after the school day will be used for professional development.
    On Tuesdays, a 75-minute block of time will follow the school day.
    Teachers will use 40 minutes to engage with parents through emails, telephone calls, face-to-face meetings or by working on parent newsletters, class websites or report cards.
    Teachers will use 35 minutes for other professional work, including collaborative planning, working on IEPs, data entry and preparing or grading student assessments.

    In addition, mandated faculty and grade or department conferences have been eliminated. These conferences have been replaced with two additional evening parent-teacher conferences. Evening conferences will be held in September (as a Meet the Staff night), November, March and May and will last three hours."

    It says there's no change to the 150 minutes and hey, I'm no math math teacher but doesn't 80 plus 75 equal 155? lol

    I'm already thinking that in my school we should have an SBO to change it to Tuesday and Wednesday, I don't like the idea of doing 75 or 80 extra minutes on a Monday.

    Mary

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    1. No one comes to the conferences now. So now we get double the amount? Ugh. A mess. And I'm hearing, you're going to see very little money for this for next year. Very, very little.

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    2. Well, faculty conferences were 40 minutes 10 times a year for a total of 400 minutes which equals 6.666.. hours. lol.. how fitting! Anyway, the two extra PT conferences will amount to 6 hours so it would have been almost a wash except that they'll be 3 instead of 2.5 hours, so we lose an hour or so.

      At least the first one in September will be more of a Back to School Night.

      Mary

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  20. By the way, since you will not fully recover your retro pay for 2009 and 2010 until the year 2020, the retro pay is not really 4% plus 4% = 8% in terms of 2009 dollars. The net present value of your retro pay is actually much, much less. It is approximately equivalent to a total of 3.5% in 2010 dollars when you adjust for inflation and delayed payment of wages.. The UFT is spinning you teachers a big,big lie. Are you just dumb and gullible enough to accept this piece of shit contact from Mulgrew , the UFT and NYC? Just wanted to mention another big way that the UFT is spinning a Big Big Lie.

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    1. so the 4+4 percent is being spread out in terms of increase to your salary OR the backpay is dread out?

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    2. Good point about 2009-2010 dollars compared to 2020, first anonymous.

      Second anonymous, they're both spread out. Your total raise for this year and last year will be 2%. That's it. You'll get $1000K for agreeing to the contract. And that's all she wrote. The rest will come in over the course of the contract, with retro not getting added in until May 2015-2020.

      Truly a horror show.

      Enjoy you 2%.

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    3. guess we're 2%ers now.

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    4. Now that I see the raise works out to 1.42%, I guess I'd say we're 1.42%ers.

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  21. Concerning extended day.... I know it's different in HS and probably in MS but in elementary school students stay. I'll have to be honest with you, I like small group instruction during that time and would much rather be with students than attending PD. Struggling students need that extra help and you really get a chance to work with them without worrying about observations and all that nonsense.
    Mary

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    1. We added the time to the periods. I don't know what will happen under this new contract with that. I can tell you one thing - people are not going to be happy tomorrow when I tell them that the 10% raise they think they're getting in September is actually 2% + $1000K cash payout.

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  22. Sounds like I picked the wrong year to leave the DOE. I can't find any information about whether or not retroactive pay will be extended to teachers who worked during those years but will no longer be employed when the contract it signed. Thoughts?

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    1. You will get the retro, per info at ICEUFT blog:

      Anyone who Retires Before July 1, 2015 Wins Big
      The winners in this deal are anyone who retired from 2009 through now and anyone else who retires between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015. 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.

      Anyone who retires July 1, 2015 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.

      LINK: http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-contract-retro-delayed-retro-denied.html

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  23. Hey lets thank our union leadership for this great "earth shattering " deal. I think the UFT should wait until 2020 to raise union dues.

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  24. At the delegate assembly, Mulgrew actually said that the expedited 3020A proceedings for ATRs (for undefined unprofessional behavior) was a "good thing, and would help ATRs". Hey, don't scratch your butt, or you are out!

    Mulgrew is such a worthless turd. Got to be on the take.

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