Detroit Sees Flurry Of Mid-Year Departures From Teachers

Gee, here's a shock - Detroit's got a teacher recruitment/retention problem:

Three months into the school year, Detroit Public Schools is facing a teacher shortage and also seeing what union officials say seems like an unprecedented number of midyear retirements and resignations.

In early November, there were at least 170 teaching vacancies. DPS spokesman Michelle Zdrodowski said Wednesday that the number has been reduced to 135 by reorganizing some teaching assignments based on enrollment numbers from the fall student count day.

The shortage has pushed other academic staff, such as instructional specialists and school service assistants, into teaching roles. About 115 substitutes have been assigned to fill empty spots.

The problem isn't new. In late September 2014, there were more than 100 vacancies.

The problem is expected to get worse because of some vaunted new education reforminess coming down the pike:

Teachers are facing an expected spike in health care costs and heightened uncertainty about the future of the district itself. Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed sweeping education reforms for Detroit that could potentially take effect in 2016.

Those factors — plus stagnant pay — have pushed some teachers who were on the fence about retiring to finally take the plunge, said Patrick Falcusan, financial analyst and retirement counselor for the Detroit Federation of Teachers union.

"Virtually every day, somebody calls me and wants to quit or retire," he said. "A number of teachers aren't coming back after Christmas.

"What is driving this is the concern (about education reforms) and whether the new school district is going to be part of the retirement system. Some people just want to get out while there's still a DPS, while there's still an HR department, while there's still a payroll department to process stuff."

Starting salary as a DPS teacher is $36,683.

Teachers haven't gotten a salary step increase since 2011-2012.

And soon they'll be paying more for their health care and perhaps losing their pension benefits.

I can't imagine why teachers would be leaving, retiring, resigning, etc.

Here's Comes The "Health Care Savings" From City Workers

From the NY Times:

When Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his first labor agreements with New York City unions this spring, he was sharply criticized for granting long-awaited wage increases in exchange for promises of unspecified though sizable savings on health care expenses.

Now, some of the specifics are coming into focus: City officials and union leaders say they hope to push municipal workers to use walk-in clinics more and emergency rooms less, order generic drugs more often than brand-name ones, and buy them through the mail rather than at retail pharmacies to achieve bulk discounts.

The city hopes the unions will agree to steer workers to use centralized, cheaper centers for blood tests, X-rays or M.R.I.s, rather than having those tests performed in doctors’ offices or at costly physician-owned facilities. Patients who resist could face higher copayments, while savings would be passed on to the city in lower premiums.

The cost-cutting comes with high stakes: If the city and unions are unable to save a total of $3.4 billion on health care by 2018, a mediator will be empowered to order increases in workers’ premiums to cover the shortfall, officials said.

As an added inducement, if the unions help the city exceed that goal, the first $365 million in additional savings would be distributed as lump-sum bonuses to workers, officials said. Any savings beyond that would be split evenly between the city and its employees.

The Times article notes that de Blasio did not push for city workers to pay a percentage of salary toward health care contributions - unlike in some of the other union deals made lately:

Missing from the labor contracts with teachers and other city workers that were announced beginning in May was any requirement for union members to begin contributing toward their health insurance premiums. That prompted some critics to say Mr. de Blasio was not being tough enough at the bargaining table.

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the unions representing 5,400 Long Island Rail Road employees agreed that those workers would begin paying 2 percent of their wages toward their health coverage.

But Mr. Linn said the city would gain far more by trimming health costs than by getting municipal workers to pay the same 2 percent of their wages toward their health premiums. That contribution, he said, would translate into $400 million a year.

“Look at it this way,” Mr. Linn said in an interview. “Isn’t it better to achieve savings so an employer pays $16,000 toward health coverage per worker, than to have a total cost of $20,000 per worker, with the employee contributing $2,000 of that?”

We'll see if the approach the unions took with de Blasio works or not.

The worst case scenario would be to make these cost-cutting moves, then still get stuck in 2018 with paying a percentage of salary to health care anyway.

One thing I know is, once you start paying a percentage of salary toward health care contributions, that contribution goes up every contract.

I think the LIRR union leaders were fools to have given what they gave in their contract - they ate their young on salary progression and pension payments AND they agreed to have workers pay 2% of salary toward health care.

You can bet that 2% of salary for health care will go up next contract - and every contract after that.

The municipal contracts give the city an opening to make workers pay a percentage of salary toward health care - but only if the $3.4 billion in "health care savings" isn't hit by 2018.

The Times reports the "savings" calculation will work this way:

Labor leaders and city officials began the talks on health care cuts in mid-July and are to meet again in early August, with the goal of agreeing on $400 million in health savings this year, $700 million next year, $1 billion the year after that and $1.3 billion in fiscal 2018, for a total of $3.4 billion.

Finally de Blasio labor guy Bob Linn tells the Times the de Blasio approach to health care savings is better than getting workers to pay into health care:

Mr. Linn said some critics of the administration seemed preoccupied with getting employees to pay toward their health insurance premiums, while underestimating workers’ ability to embrace cost-saving, innovative approaches to their health care.

Before joining Mr. de Blasio’s administration, Mr. Linn was a consultant who helped restructure health care services for 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, the giant health care union. He said he was using that deal, which includes central blood and imaging labs, generic drugs and mail-in prescriptions, as a model.

The city’s new agreements create strong incentives for the unions to find savings.

If the prospect of lump-sum bonuses does not do the trick and the unions fail to agree to steps that reach the savings target, then the mediator in the contract dispute with the teachers, Martin F. Scheinman, is to step in and order cost-saving measures to reach that goal. Those measures could include requiring the workers to contribute to their premiums for the first time.

Carol Kellermann, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said the potential bonuses could be an important catalyst. 

“We haven’t tried it before,” Ms. Kellermann said. “I think it will motivate the managers of the unions. There’s nothing like getting your members a bonus.”

Mr. Linn said many New Yorkers underestimated the potential benefits of collective bargaining.

“Our approach is, how do you get people to work together and find common interests to achieve savings?” he said. 

“We’ve created a system in which labor and management have a joint incentive to achieve health savings.”

It behooves us to watch closely and see what happens here.

Was This The Best The LIRR Unions Could Do?

Given the leverage the LIRR unions had in their negotiations, it being an election year and all, if these reports are accurate, this is a pretty bad deal:

"Under terms of the deal, current LIRR employees will receive a 17 percent wage increase over six-and-a-half years. The union had been seeking six years, and the MTA seven. To pay for the additional salary expenses, all employees will for the first time contribute to their health insurance, the governor said. New employees will have a different wage progression and retirement contributions. The agreement doesn’t include fare increases, Cuomo said."

If what Cuomo said is what's actually in the deal, then the union leadership conceded on health care contributions and they ate their young on wage progression and retirement contributions.

Those concessions sure do diminish the 17% wage increase over 6.5 years.

I've written this over and over, but I'm going to do so once again:

Making that first-time concession on health care contributions is ALWAYS a loss.

Once you open the door to ANY contributions to health care, you hit the slippery slope of concessions on health care/increased payments from employees EVERY time the contract comes up for re-negotiation.

They couldn't do better than this in an election year with a strike deadline looming?

Mulgrew Gets Definitive At The DA: No Paying For Health Care

There was a leaked memo going around that said city workers will pay a percentage of their salaries toward health care as per a "savings" agreement made between the city and the Municipal Labor Committee.

Here's how the payments will work according to the memo:

Salary <$30,000	Contribution Percentage of Salary 0.0%
$30,000 - $40,000	0.5%
$40,000 - $50,000	1.0%
$50,000 - $60,000	1.5%
$60,000+	2.0%

Now before you think this is just some Internet conspiracy thing and the leaked memo is phony, Capital NY also reports that city employees paying a percentage of their salaries for health care is indeed on the table:

POTENTIAL HEALTH CARE PROBLEM IN U.F.T. DEAL -- Capital’s Dan Goldberg and Sally Goldenberg: Despite assurances from leaders of the city teachers' union that members “should not” have to pay more toward their health insurance as a result of their agreement with the de Blasio administration, that remains a possibility. Both the United Federation of Teachers and City Hall regard it as a last resort, something of a stick to encourage members to find other sources of health care savings to reach the targeted $1.3 billion over four years. But it has not been ruled out, and teachers could be asked to contribute as much as 2 percent of their salary to pay for benefits. In public, U.F.T. president Michael Mulgrew made it sound as if there was no chance that teachers would have to pay for their health benefits. The U.F.T.’s delegate assembly approved the contract deal on Wednesday night. http://goo.gl/2kxOjF

A colleague from school attended the Delegates Assembly yesterday, took notes at the meeting and reported back that UFT President Mulgrew was adamant that teachers would not be paying into their health care as part of this UFT contract proposal.

My colleague said that Mulgrew said the leaked memo was not something the unions had agreed to, that it had come from the city, that in any case one union could not agree to such a change, that it is the function of the Municipal Labor Committee as a whole to do so.

My colleague said that Mulgrew and the UFT leadership drew a line in the sand at the DA and said, unequivocally, members will not be paying premiums for health care as a result of this contract deal.

I am going to be very blunt about this paying for health care story:

If Mulgrew and the UFT are misrepresenting the "health care savings" in either the contract agreement or the backing vote by the Municipal Labor Committee and are preparing to get the rank-and-file a "generous" 2% salary increase next year only to take it right back for health care contributions, there will be hell to pay.

There is a lot of anger out there over the contract already, the delayed compensation, the "retro" that really isn't retro but future compensation for decade-old work (which you need to still be working for to get) and the changes to some of the work rules, including the ATR provisions and the "65% can opt out of the contract" provision.

My sense is that despite the anger from many in the membership over the contract, enough will vote yes for this contract proposal to pass it because A) they need the money, B) they think it will get passed no matter how they vote anyway and C) in the end will be concerned about what the UFT will negotiate if this gets voted down (HINT: could be worse - a meme put out there already by the UFT leadership and the Unity caucus.)

In short, the usual reasons why bad contracts have passed in the past.

But if the UFT leadership has agreed to a stealth health care payment and aren't being open and honest with the membership about it before the contract vote, I think you will see a major revolt in the ranks against the leadership.

Yes, the UFT rank-and-file have passively submitted to every slap and punch they've gotten from the NYCDOE and the UFT in the 13 years I have been a teacher, but I think they will hit a bridge too far if the UFT gets the membership a 2% "raise" next year and the city takes it right back for health care contributions.

What say you out there?

What have you heard about this stealth health care increase the UFT is allegedly spring on us?

Do you think the UFT, the rest of the unions and the city are playing a fast one on the rank-and-file, telling us there will be no payments up front for health care only to hit us with a 0.5%-2% payment of total salary once the contract is passed and the pattern is settled?

I have a difficult time seeing even the UFT leadership being this deceptive and dishonest, especially since this kind of betrayal would be the very kind of thing that most members would never forget.

Maybe Mulgrew might still think he could win re-election pulling that kind of fast one, but I bet an opposition from MORE running on the "Mulgrew Lied To Your Face And You Can See The Evidence Of That In Your Pay Stub" platform could beat him - especially since he was so emphatic about no health care payments at yesterday's DA.

But having been around for almost 13 years, nothing would totally surprise me anymore, so it's a question that needed to be put out there and asked.

That I even need to write this post speaks to how little trust there is for the current UFT leadership, the deals they make and the words they speak.

If it turns out Mulgrew and the leadership are lying about the stealth health care increase, we will use these words Mulgrew and his leadership spoke at yesterday's DA to drive home once and for all to the rank-and-file that the current UFT leadership are cheats and liars and it is time to clean house and bring in somebody who will truly represent the rank-and-file rather than just their own interests and privilege.

De Blasio Looks For Health Care Concessions From Unions

Here it is:

The city is kicking off negotiations with municipal labor unions this week to find potential savings in health care costs, officials confirmed to the Daily News.

“The city will commence discussions about health benefits with the unions that represent the workforce,” said Marti Adams, a spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio.

The discussions are a key part of overall labor talks with the unions representing the 300,000 city employees who have been working under expired labor contracts, some for more than five years.

The unions are seeking more than $7 billion in retroactive pay hikes.

Harry Nespoli, chairman of the Municipal Labor Committee, said the city and the unions might look for other health care vendors to save the city money. Currently the city works with GHI, Emblem Health and Aetna, among others.

“We feel health care is costing the city of New York too much money,” said Nespoli. “We can make adjustments.

...

The city may press the unions to accept worker contributions to health care costs.

But from the union perspective, bargaining about givebacks cannot be separated from settling the expired contracts.

“The city has a desire to discuss possible changes in benefits that might be cost-saving, and I don’t think the unions are willing to do that unless that’s linked to resolving some of the (contract) issues,” said Joshua Freeman, a professor at Queens College.

You're going to get a raise in one hand and they're going to take that money right back for health care.

And bet that the UFT leadership will tell you that the deal scrapes the skies.

You Can Have A Raise, But Only If You Pay For Your Health Care

That's the message from the plutocracy for NYC municipal union workers:

A mayor who signs costly contracts would face the politically fraught prospect of raising taxes, budget experts say. Pushing for big concessions risks a continued stalemate, which isn't a palatable alternative for the Democratic candidates—one of whom is likely to be the next mayor in the overwhelmingly Democratic city—who depend on union support.

The unions want any new deal to include raises for the years since their contracts ran out. The city calculates that retroactive raises plus future raises at the rate of inflation would cost $3 billion a year—more than the annual $2.4 billion budget of the city's sanitation department.

Mr. Bloomberg's union offer didn't include retroactive raises and would have provided future pay increases of just over 1% a year. He also wanted workers to pay 10% of the cost of their health plans for individual coverage and 20% for family coverage.

Currently, 95% of city employees pay nothing for basic health plans—a rarity even among public employees.

"I don't think there's any chance that they can resolve this without employee contributions to health care," said Kathy Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, a business group that opposes raising taxes. "The numbers just don't work."

Here's the union response:

Harry Nespoli, the head of the sanitation-workers union who also is president of an umbrella municipal-union group, said workers want to help the city find health-care savings, but they don't want to contribute to premiums. He said, for example, the unions would be willing to help the city negotiate savings from vendors of services like health insurance. But unions recently sued to stop a Bloomberg administration attempt to shop for a new provider for the city's $6 billion health plan.

And here's where the candidates are on health care:

Two of the four leading Democratic candidates for mayor—Ms. Quinn, who has the support of Mr. Nespoli's sanitation workers, and Mr. Weiner—have said employee health-care costs should be on the table.

Another, Mr. de Blasio, who has been endorsed by the health-care workers union, wants to reduce costs by creating 20 city-run clinics to provide basic care at job sites. Mr. Thompson—who is backed by the teachers and firefighters unions—has been less specific, saying he doesn't want to negotiate in public.

Paying for health care to get a raise would essentially nullify that raise.

Once unions open the door to paying for health care, even some small percentage of the overall cost, the door will remain open forever in future negotiations.

If we sell out the health care benefit now for raises, the increases on health care payments they'll force through in future negotiations will eat away whatever little raise you get now.

That's my take.

How about you?

Any of you out there willing to pay for health care in order to get a retro raise (or just a raise)?

If so, explain to me why you are willing to do so.

Maybe I'm missing something on this issue.

You Mean Bloomberg Can Control Health Care Costs?

Turns out Bloomberg can actually use his beloved free market to keep down costs for city employees - who knew?

Mayor Bloomberg has discovered the secret for saving the city $363 million in health care costs -- the threat of competition.

Bloomberg disclosed on his WOR Radio show today that Emblem Health, the city's longtime insurer, has said that for the first time in 15 years it won't increase premiums if it's contract is renewed next year.

The mayor said that would stabilize the city's annual health insurance tab at $6.4. billion and avert an increase of $363 million that had been anticipated in fiscal 2015, which begins on July 1.

Without changes, the city projected its health care bill would skyrocket to $8.3 billion in 2017.

Bloomberg said Emblem acted after his administration announced plans to test the market and seek new bids for coverage.

"It just shows how overpriced these services are," said the mayor.

Emblem covers about 95 percent of the city's employees, retirees and their families.

"We were convinced that city workers and retirees were not getting the best possible care at a competitive price," said Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway.

"Emblem Health's virtually unprecedented decision not to seek a rate increase for next year shows that we were right."

The mayor loves to talk up "competition" and "free markets" when it comes to public education.

Apparently it's a new idea for him when it comes to the companies that provide city employee benefits, however.

Of course I've always assumed he was full of crap with his free market and competition talk on most things.

I can't think of a mayor who's loved no-bid contracts with outside companies that have overrun costs of millions of dollars more than Mike Bloomberg.

That's how CityTime happened.

Same with the 911 system overruns.

In any case, here we are with $363 million in health care savings for fiscal 2015.

Let's remember that when the next mayor, whomever that is, claims poverty and says employees simply must contribute to health care costs or New York will immediately turn into Detroit.

For that matter, let's remember the next time some retired Unity hack writes the same crap.

$363 million in health care savings.

Weiner Says If Teachers Want Raises, They Must Concede On Health Care Costs

From Politicker:

Anthony Weiner took one of his strongest shots yet against Mayor Michael Bloomberg Sunday afternoon, criticizing the mayor’s attitude dealing with teachers and the teachers’ union.

“Would any business treat its employees—meaning teachers—as badly as their boss is treating them?” the ex-congressman said following a Memorial Day service in Co-op City in the Bronx.

“It’s frankly just not a productive way to be a boss. I’m not going to do that,” he said. “I honor the teachers and contributions they make.”

The comments came in response to a question from retired city math teacher Ted Wachtel, 64, who said he has been deeply frustrated by the mayor’s attitude toward teachers. He asked Mr. Weiner for his thoughts on the city’s expired labor contracts.

“It’s reprehensible how the union members have been taking the brunt of all the problems in the city,” Mr. Wachtel said.

But instead of bemoaning the situation like many of his rivals, Mr. Weiner said he was excited by the idea.

“The fact is that being this long without a contract is an opportunity for the next mayor. It really is,” he said. “I mean, to be honest with you, I like the idea that if I’m fortunate enough to get elected, I’m going to have a chance to engage in these conversations fresh.”

Mr. Weiner has proposed forcing city employees to pay a percentage of their health care premiums, which as he told Mr. Wachtel, would give him more leeway to boost salaries. Mr. Wachtel said he appreciated the approach.

“He makes some substantial points,” Mr. Wachtel said of the former congressman, who was forced to resign from office two years ago in the wake of a sexting scandal. “People deserve a second chance … America is a forgiving country. And they forgave Clinton. And you have to just bone up and acknowledge when you do something wrong.”

I'm going to leave aside Weiner's proposal here for a moment and focus on Ted Wachtel, the retired teacher who "appreciates" Weiner telling him it's time for city employees to pay for their health care if they want salary increases.

Mr. Wachtel, you do know teachers missed out on the 4%/4% that every other union got as part of the pattern without having to give any concessions on health care?

And yet you're all right with Weiner telling you if teachers want raises, they need to concede on health care?

Sorry, Mr. Wachtel, I and tens of thousands of other working teachers are not all right with that nor do we appreciate Weiner promoting that as one of his campaign platforms.

As for Weiner and his proposal, it's a non-starter with me and every teacher I have spoken to at my school has said it's a non-starter with them.

We have been working five years without a raise, we did not get the 4%/4% that every other city union got as part of the pattern and we will not be appreciate making concessions on health care to the next mayor.

That message needs to get out to both Anthony Weiner and Ted Wachtel, the retired math teacher who "appreciates" Weiner's approach to the next teachers' contract.