As Expected, Cuomo Screws NYC Renters And Schools

The inevitable Cuomo screw job on rent regulation came today:

New York City loses tens of thousands of affordable apartments each year to deregulation. Under the "framework" of an agreement to extend rent laws announced today by Governor Cuomo and the two leaders of the state legislature, the city will keep on losing them.

At a press conference this afternoon, the "Three Men In A Room," told reporters that the city's recently expired rent laws would be renewed for four more years.

Earlier this month, the Assembly passed a bill that would repeal the state's vacancy decontrol law, which allows landlords to jack up the rent on regulated apartments as soon as a tenant leaves and perpetuates a system of inequality.

That change was eliminated.

Instead, the leaders promised to do what they did in 2011: modestly increase the rent at which a rent-regulated apartment could be deregulated, from $2,500 to $2,700.

Reaction from Alliance for Tenant Power's Katie Goldstein:

Our worst fears about Governor Cuomo have been confirmed. He took no action at all to strengthen the rent laws. Cuomo made empty promises and lied repeatedly while helping the Senate Republicans advance a bill that is a massive giveaway to landlords. Cuomo’s Republican deal on rent will harm and endanger countless low-income and working-class households. Up to 100,000 rent-regulated apartments will be lost over the next four years because of Cuomo’s Republican deal. This four-year extender does nothing to empower tenants. In fact, it leaves the most vulnerable even more susceptible to landlord harassment and skyrocketing rents. Cuomo should change his party registration to Republican because he is not worthy of the Democratic Party and its most basic values. Cuomo will suffer big political consequences for his betrayal of tenants and Democrats and for solidifying his status as a Republican Governor.

We were right to challenge Cuomo at every turn and not trust him throughout our campaign for stronger rent laws. Cuomo never had any intention of introducing his own pro-tenant bill. We will now lose many more rent-regulated units because of Cuomo’s failure to deliver for tenants and for working families. Today Cuomo alienated and angered millions of New Yorkers. We look forward to helping a strong Democrat defeat Cuomo if he foolishly tries to run for a third term as Governor.

In addition to the screw job to tenants, Cuomo stuck it to public schools too - raising the charter cap by 180 (50 for the city, but since the statewide cap is nowhere near full, expect that some or all of those rest-of-the-state slots end up in NYC in the end), giving $250 million to private schools and extending the property tax cap for 4 years.

Another end-of-the-session screw job from Cuomo.

When do "liberals" in NYC finally abandon Andrew Cuomo and make him pay politically for screwing them?

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