Thursday, May 1, 2014

UFT Contract Agreement Has Hitches

Juan Gonzalez details the fissures between the "uniformed" unions and the "civilian" unions over the tentative UFT contract deal:

The tentative UFT deal includes two years of 4% retroactive pay increases for teachers, who have been without a contract since November 2009 — longer than nearly all other city unions. Increases in subsequent years would be far smaller — about 1% per year, and would then grow in the final years, sources said.

...
Pay increases during the later years of the tentative contract are contingent on the city reaching agreement with the Municipal Labor Committee, which represents all city unions, to redirect a proposed $2 billion in savings in employee health care costs into wage hikes for all city workers, the sources said.

The two biggest unions, the teachers and District Council 37, appear to back the proposal.
But opposition has surfaced from leaders of the city’s uniformed unions, who fear they may be asked for health care givebacks to fund teacher raises.
...
After reaching the outlines of his deal with City Hall, Mulgrew began pressing leaders of the labor committee to move quickly to reach an agreement on the the health care issue.

If the steering committee representing all the unions approves the health care savings proposal Friday, the entire coalition of nearly 100 labor unions will then vote Monday.

...
  
But at a heated meeting of the labor coalition Wednesday morning, leaders of the city’s police, fire and correction unions sought to derail the fast-developing deal, revealing a potential conflict with the “civilian” unions. 
At one point in the meeting, Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, threatened a lawsuit and blasted Mulgrew for orchestrating the deal to largely benefit teachers. 
“Mulgrew doesn’t negotiate for my members,” said one leader of a uniformed union. “They’re asking us to vote on something without documentation of what’s in it. That’s ridiculous.”

Hey, welcome to our world, Norman, where the UFT leadership puts stuff on us without much in the way of details and says "Trust us!"

In any case, the need for a Municipal Labor Committee vote on the "health care savings" that will fund the raises in the final years of the contract means the contract is by no means finalized.

The Times reported that the other unions were also pissed that Mulgrew and the UFT got little in the way of raises after the initial 8% from the previous pattern.

The Gonzalez article seems to substantiate that - sounds like 1% raises for the years after 2009/2010 that are covered by the old pattern until the later years of the 9 year contract when the raises get larger.

Or maybe I should say, if they get larger, since those raises are contingent upon "savings" from the health care fund that all the unions have to agree to give.

25 comments:

  1. What really matters is that if the new contract features raises of 2 plus 2 percent for the CURRENT round of contracts, that will be the pattern for quite a long time. The other unions in NYC have every right to be angry over this.

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    1. Turns out the pattern is 1.42%.

      2% would have been good compared to what we got.

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  2. RBE read todays Wall St Journal on the contract, very scary details of how the ATR status may be resolved via the agreement.

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    1. I want to see the exact wording of what they;re going to do with ATR's. No summary from the UFT. Exact wording. Because as NYC Educator wrote, we're all potential ATR's in this system.

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  3. Michael FiorilloMay 1, 2014 at 8:39 AM

    Why should teachers be the only one's to get screwed by Weingrew? Let's have everyone know that it's like!

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    1. Weingarten could only screw teachers. Mulgrew actually gets to screw ALL city workers. Quite a feat.

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  4. I don't see how police, fire, etc are going to accept 1.5%-2% per year. That still leaves everyone behind the rate of inflation. They should have negotiated first. That way we would get the original 4+4 and whatever they receive. If that article is correct NYC teachers will still be tens of thousands of dollars behind what every other teacher in the area makes($20-40K depending on district). Couple that with less supplies, higher class sizes, deplorable working conditions, etc and it's not that hard to understand why teachers don't want to work in NYC.

    Also forgot to mention the 45 minutes of wasting time and gas every morning trying to find a spot because NYC really thinks they need to clean each side of the street twice a week. Then walking 6-8 blocks while our suburban counterparts can park in nice safe lots adjacent to their school building. On top of that the street sweepers drive by two hours before the parking rules start and can't even get to the curb on 90% of the streets because cars are obviously still parked there.

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    1. Behind inflation and now not getting the behind inflation raises for several more years.

      But I'm sure the city will never try and weasel out on the retro lump sums in the future. Not even if there's another recession.

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  5. Let's not leave the lunatic principals out of the equation. The principals not qualified to run a hair salon making decisions about the lives of thousands of children and teachers.

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    1. I think there are some principals not qualified to run their own lives, let alone a hair salon.

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  6. What a difference life is when you have the miser bloomberg out of sight and mind. NYC seems so much more at peace now that this sicko maniac is out of our lives. I feel \bad about how some peoples livlihoods were destroyed by this demon of a human being most notably the school bus drivers....this new contract is just a general going forward type of raise...no one is getting rich but we are all rich in mind now that the sicko, miser who would not give any raises to any unions...is gone. Mike Bloomberg would go to the media and brag how great our NYPD and our FDNY are great but never would give any money showing what a complete phony, hypocrite he was

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    1. Apparently de Blasio is doing the same thin with the cops, which is why the PBA declared an impasse with the city. Pols love talking about cops and fire personnel, until they actually have to pay them some real cash. Then, not so much.

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  7. Sounds like a S - - - sandwich contract....all the way around...as predicted...

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  8. BUT...the no nothing newbies will ratify this in a second...as predicted...divide and conquer...divide and conquer...

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

      Don't the just put it on new teachers: don't you think senior teachers looking to bail out will jump at this?

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    2. Yeah, I agree, I don't like slamming "newbie" teachers necessarily. I am working with a first year DOE teacher now, she sees through some of the b.s. already. Also agree, some senior teachers will jump on this too.

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  9. Give me my 19% raise. Screw everyone else!!!! Give me my retro, my per session retro, and a Cuban.

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    1. Per the non-existent memorandum on the contract details, I believe the Cuban is not coming until 2019. Until then, you're on your own.

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  10. It was not up to fire/cops to let teachers go first. The city negotiated with them first cause they have been without a contract the longest. Taking zero's is never good when the cost of living has gone up better then 2% a year.

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    1. I agree, the UFT going first was bound to end in disaster. That's what the Unity folks specialize in.

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  11. what about retirees who worked those years? what about 2011 and 2012 how come nothing for those years?

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  12. can't anybody comment on the above ?

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    1. Retirees who worked in 2009 and 2010 and retired in 2011 or on will receive the retro lump sums, per 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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    2. what about a teacher who retired July 2012? They state that there is 0 for 2011 and 2012 - anyone?
      This is so helpful -

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  13. you all could sit and have a fishbowl discussion or a Socratic
    P.D. about whether to vote yes or no

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