Bloomberg calls for no teacher pay raises to avoid layoffs

human capital (updated)

June 2, 2010

Bloomberg calls for no teacher pay raises to avoid layoffs

by Anna Phillips, at 10:37 am

Mayor Bloomberg called this morning for the city to eliminate pay raises for public school teachers for the next to years to forestall teacher layoffs.

The mayor said that cutting the two percent pay raises the city had planned to offer teachers — already a decrease from a planned four percent raise — would prevent the city from laying off 4,400 teachers.

A spokesman for the city’s teachers union said he had just learned of the mayor’s plan to eliminate pay raises. The mayor’s statement is silent on whether the teachers union has agreed to this proposal, an important omission as any decisions regarding pay have to be made in contract negotiations.

UPDATE 11:30 am: Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew released a statement saying the union has not agreed to freeze teacher salaries.

“The Mayor has the power to unilaterally rescind the proposed layoffs, and I’m glad that he has made the right decision to avoid massive disruptions to our schools,” Mulgrew said, adding that the mayor does not have the power to “unilaterally decide on the teachers’ contract.”

The teachers union contract expired October 31 of last year and talks with the city have been ongoing for seven months. Unless the city and union reach a new contract agreement soon, teachers will go without raises next year anyway, as any changes to their pay have to be bargained with the union.

Mulgrew has repeatedly taken the position that the best way for the city to avoid layoffs is through a retirement incentive.

Chancellor Joel Klein is scheduled to give a news conference about budget cuts at 11:45 am today and a spokesman for the Department of Education said he would not answer questions about the mayor’s plan before then.

Mayor Bloomberg’s statement:

“Earlier this morning in a conversation I had with United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, I shared our Administration’s solution to the State budget impasse that has left us facing the possibility of substantial teacher layoffs: it is far better for our children and our teachers to save the jobs of over 4,400 teachers, rather than layoff those 4,400 teachers while granting raises to others.

“A month ago, the City released our Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2011. It was based on the Governor’s proposed budget, which included huge reductions in State aid for education. We warned back then that if the State didn’t restore those cuts we’d be forced to lay off thousands of teachers. But yet another month has passed and the State Legislature has still not agreed on a final budget. Our schools simply can’t wait any longer. Principals are already far past the point in the calendar when they must plan for the upcoming school year, and they need to know what kind of resources they can count on.

“Laying off thousands of teachers is simply not the answer. It would devastate the school system and erase much of the great progress we’ve made – and all the hard work we’ve put into turning our schools around. There is simply nothing more important to a child’s education than a first-rate teacher. So I have decided to eliminate the two percent raises we had planned for our teachers and principals in each of the coming two years in order to save the jobs of some 4,400 teachers.

“Make no mistake: we’ve done everything possible to find cost savings, including substantial cuts in administrative spending. And we know that teachers and their families are facing tough times too, and that this will not be easy for them. But when it came to a choice between teacher raises or laying off teachers, I have chosen to protect our children and their futures. While other towns and cities around the country are closing schools and laying off teachers, our Administration is determined to do everything possible to keep our teachers where we need them: in the classroom.

“This was not an ideal decision, and it certainly does not solve all of our budget issues. In our conversation this morning, Michael Mulgrew and I agreed that we would go together to Albany and Washington to press our case to restore more education funding. Our City’s schools have come a long way in eight years, and we couldn’t have done it without our outstanding corps of teachers.”

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew’s response:

The Mayor has the power to unilaterally rescind the proposed layoffs, and I’m glad that he has made the right decision to avoid massive disruptions to our schools. He also has the power to take other steps to help deal with our schools’ budget problems, such as opting into the state’s early retirement incentive, which would potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars; and using more of the estimated $3.27 billion surplus that is being rolled into fiscal 2011 to replace reductions in state education funding.

But he does NOT have the power to unilaterally decide on the teachers’ contract, and we have reached NO agreement on his proposal to freeze teacher pay. If the Mayor has concrete ideas on the next contract, he and his representatives should bring them to the bargaining table at the Public Employment Relations Board, where our contract is currently in mediation.

While we have reached no agreement on the next contract, the Mayor and I have agreed to go together to Albany and Washington in the near future to lobby for new resources to prevent devastating budget cuts to our schools, our classrooms, and the communities we serve.

Jeff S

Well many of you said you would pass up on your raise (some even said they would take a 10% cut) to prevent layoffs. I hope you’re happy now! (Well actually since you were not going to get a meaningful contract anyway for two years, it’s not a big deal…you can always fold the raise into the contract retroactively depending on the country’s financial shape then…..). Semantics, semantics, semantics when you get right down to it!
miss teacher

Well, he can keep his crappy 2%. After taxes what would I see? A dollar a check? I still wonder how he justifies the $5 million for recruiting.
Veteran Teacher

Maybe he would really really really like all senior teachers to donate blood in order to get the money to avoid cutting teachers in this crisis he has created.
If the 1200 teachers in the rubber rooms were returned to their classrooms and the ATRs were returned to their classrooms and Tweed took a 10 percent cut in staffing this self -created problem would be solved.
http://nessnyc.blogspot.com Eliot Ness

Wait, so the principals and teachers have to freeze their wages, but the DOE administrators got a 2% raise and created a dozen new positions at $100K+. How does this make any sense?

As the UFT I would take the freeze to save jobs – because that’s the most important piece – but demand the DOE give back their raises as well.
EFM

This is the best plan voiced yet. Two percent isn’t all that much anyway, and pay raises can be recouped retroactively in better times. Teachers, whether tenured or not, need to hold onto their jobs to live. No more pitting one group against the other.
SciTchr

I recall that the original 4% pay raise was the mayor’s own idea-he wanted to ‘pattern bargain’ with all the city unions.Now he wants to change the rules that he set up.If I did this sort of thing in the classroom I would be sent to the rubber room, with good reason.As a matter of fact, if I conducted myself in the classroom the way these folks conduct their labor negotiations,I would not have my job.
We have been down this road before.We keep giving up things to save jobs.
jr

We got screwed again. So it was supposed to be 4% a year. Then 2%. Then we were threatened with layoffs so we get 0. And what recourse do we have?
a pre-service teacher

Union logic: Layoff 4,400 teachers and the lucky ones who get to stay get a raise? Ummm…. yeah because that’s exactly how the rest of the world operates.

I never thought that I would actually agree with Bloomberg on something but here it is.

I know from my student teaching how hard teaching in a NYC public school is (I was placed in a ‘persistently low-achieving’ school) and I don’t begrudge those wanting a raise. But get real: for your 2% raise, you are receiving larger classes,less support and probably more behavior problems simply because there are fewer teachers in your school. It simply doesn’t make sense

But delay that 2% raise (and have it retroactively kick in with a bulk payment a few years down the line) and you have better work conditions and a nice little financial cushion.
Math Teacher Bklyn

Still means no jobs for people who went spent four years working on a masters to teach the look hard way (no recruitment program) will be jobless for my second year in a row. I want to teach but will I ever get the opportunity to NYC public schools where I really want to be?
Jeff S

You haven’t lost anything you didn’t have…..there has been no new contract nor is there any new contract on the horizon….you wouldn’t have gotten a raise until a new contract was signed so…..don’t you get it….the city blinked…..they couldn’t get laws passed to by pass seniority and get rid of the ATR’s so it was either find a face saving gesture or let their new schools go up in smoke and make no mistake about it…this is a face saving gesture on Bloomberg’s part. When things settle down, a new contract will be agreed to eventually. And you all will get whatever back retroactively. So don’t go around kicking a gift horse in the mouth…basically you won this battle!
jr

That is if we get a retroactive payment. Again, we have been brought down the wrong road before.
Justin

Math teacher, I completely agree. When the UFT posted that the layoffs would be avoided, a teacher commented on facebook “Bloomberg sucks dick.” It made me sick to my stomach that I worked so hard in a traditional teacher preparatory program and am pursuing a Master’s now, and yet I still cannot be hired in the city while people like that individual who made such an immature and possibly homophobic comment continue to be on payroll and have benefits for them and their families for life. I think that people caught on to the good deal that teachers get and that’s why there’s such a glut of high-quality teacher candidates.
miss teacher

pre-service teacher- I am more likely to agree with Jr regarding any retroactive payment. It’s nice to be so optimistic- but what does it say when other municipal unions are getting 4% in the same economic climate, but we’re getting nothing? Teachers in NYC are not valued by Bloomberg and Klein, unless you are brand new and untenured. I’d be very surprised if we got any kind of retroactive payment.
http://highschoolmathideas.blogspot.com/ Math Teacher Bklyn

oh well
a pre-service teacher

Miss Teacher

What I meant by retroactive payment is if Mulgrew and Bloomberg could come to some sort of contract agreement very soon that included that provision. From what I understand about the negotiations, the pay raise has been the biggest sticking factor from getting the new contract signed.

I did my career change the hard way: I went to school that I fully took out the loans for and did student teaching unpaid unlike Fellows or TFA’s. I have a vested interest in teaching as a career. I’m in my early 30s with a long time before retirement age. Nothing about this economic climate is fair or ideal. I disagree with the 4% raises that other unions have been able to secure when teachers are left out. HOWEVER, it seems like that matters little in the reality: it’s the 2% raises or layoffs. And I don’t believe the layoffs a) are best for the students or b) best for the teachers that remain. I fully believe that the conditions that the remaining teachers will have to endure mitigates the pay raise.
jr

I think a 0 plus 0 for two years, if it is agreed upon would mean no retroactive. This is different from being without a contract for 2 years.
Green Hornet

Cheers to Mulgrew! If the Mayor has a proposal then he must come to the table. You do not bargain through the Press.
QueensParent

I work for one of those “other municipal unions” and no, we are NOT GETTING a 4% raise. Those raises covered 2007 and 2008, and you teachers got the same raise for that time period too! Many of you got more than that because you had merit raises added to your salaries in many schools throughout the City. And while there may not be any teacher layoffs, all the other people who work in the school system are getting laid off. My neighbor is an education administrator (also a UFT title) who works in one of the ISCs and she got her layoff notice this week (I didn’t see it that’s what she told me) so you all should consider yourselves truly lucky.
jr

I do not trust those in charge, and this could have all been a ploy to get us to accept little or no raises.
Pingback: Insideschools.org » No teacher layoffs for next year
Diana

I hope that Michael Mulgrew agrees to this. I know that people don’t want a salary freeze but it’s worth it to save jobs. I have been disappointed in how the union has been handling the whole crisis. I agree that they should protect seniority and tenure, but they have not been negotiating with the city at all. Demanding that all salaries and after school programs be fully financed is not a negotiation – and they are gambling with jobs like mine. I know other second year teachers I have talked to feel the same as I do – that the union abandoned us. Union reps have not even brought this issue up at our meetings. There have been no emails, no school visits. It has felt like the UFT feels if they just have a protest at city hall the city will magically say “ok we’ll pay for everything.” This won’t happen. And to those who argue the DOE has the money – that may be true, but they are not using it to save jobs so it doesn’t make a difference if they have it or not.
Green Hornet

Diana: What do you mean the union has not been negotiating. They (The Union) have been the only entity willing to negotiate. They are the honest party in all this. Don’t get your news from the Post. The Union Reps are in the buildings all the time. Nobody, particularly the UFT wants layoffs – but the Mayor and Klein must be honest bargainers.
miss teacher

pre-service teacher- I absolutely don’t want to see layoffs, so I am ok with the mayor’s directive (whether or not it happens, who knows?). Forgive my earlier vehemence- my lack of trust in the mayor and chancellor have made me quite cynical. Frankly, I’d rather not negotiate any contract with this mayor- salary is really the least of our concerns, from my p.o.v. Good luck to you finding a position.
Mikeremhead

The Mayor consciously made a decision to make the announcement and to have Klein have a press conference without the participation of the CSA and UFT. Clearly he is attempting to pressure them when he knows that he has to negotiate with the unions any payraises (or the lack of). The bottom line is that he knows he cannot change the contract to reflect what he wants with seniority and the ATRs. So this is his way to stick it to the unions and keep face at the same time. Mulgrew is right-the Mayor should consider buyouts which he refuses to do.
a pre-service teacher

Thanks Miss Teacher. I understand. I never thought I would ever agree with something Bloomberg or Klein proposed but given the alternative, I really believe it’s in everyone’s best interest (including the veteran teachers who will be saved regardless from any layoffs)

I’ve been applying to charter schools and independent schools with no luck so far. I’m having to consider moving outside the New York area. Right now I’m tutoring and hoping to build that up more.
Diana

Green Hornet – The union reps are in the buildings all the time, every day, and they are not addressing this issue with the new teachers. They are pretending that it isn’t happening. As far as negotiations go, neither side has been negotiating but the difference is that the mayor doesn’t have to because he is in a position of power. I am not a fan of Bloomberg by any means, but the fact is that he has the power to get rid of my job and it does not seem as if the UFT has the power to stop him. We’ll see what happens … but I think a perfect example of what I am talking about is the retirement incentive. It’s a very good idea, and a great way to save jobs. So why isn’t in a written proposal by Michael Mulgrew presented to the mayor’s office and on the negotiating table? Announced in a large press conference? Printed as an Op-Ed in the New York Times? At the very least, sent to NY1 to be read on the air where people will actually know it’s a possibility? Instead he just says “the mayor should do this” on the UFT website, so it’s only seen by teachers and perhaps a few parents who are closely following the issue.
SciTchr

Thank you Diana for pointing this out. I am not going to do more union bashing, although I have never been real happy with them. I wrote the mayor, Mulgrew, Stringer, and so forth asking them to support a retirement incentive. I have to say, the only one to respond was Mulgrew (probably an aide) who got back to me in less than an hour, saying they were working on it and to write my local representatives.
Anyway, I am happy to step aside and take a smaller pension if they simply adopt the Plan A part of the State early retirement incentive.
Anyone that feels the same should write: the mayor, Mulgrew, City and state reps asap
QueensParent

Can we just dispense with this rhetoric that RETIREMENT INCENTIVES SAVE MONEY. They do not. They actually cost money. Unless you are going to have 5,000 teachers retire and not replace them, then no money will be saved. The reason is that although the City will presumably hire more teachers for less money, they also have the IMMEDIATE costs of paying the health benefits of the 5,000 teachers that just retired, and that cost comes out of the operating budget, not the pension fund. Thus a double healthcare payment is required, one for the retired teacher, and one for the new replacement. This is just once again another red herring put out by the teachers union.
Diana

Queens Parent – That is exactly what would happen which is why it would save money. If they can get 5,000 teachers to retire it would save the 4,400 jobs they were talking about getting rid of – the retired teachers would not be replaced. There has been a hiring freeze in place since September of 2009 and it doesn’t look as though it will be lifted any time soon. We are just talking about how to save the jobs of teachers who are currently working.
QueensParent

Diana there’s no talk of not re-hiring those 5,000 teachers (or 4,400). If that happens, then you will get all the class size people coming out of the woodwork saying it is still a cut of 5,000 (or 4,400 teachers)
Peter

If the Mayor set aside 2% in his budget to fund a contract that had not been negotiated and decides to use that money to avert layoffs, fine.

In the months ahead the union and the city will probably end up at factfinding and wrangle over “pattern bargaining” versus “ability to pay.” Retroactive pay has been treated differently in different sets of negotiations, sometimes fully funded, sometime partially funded, sometime “back loaded,” a larger raise on the last day of the contract.

Six or nine or twelve months from now the city might be in much better fiscal circumstances, the Mayor made a good decison thart has no negative impact.

Retirement incentives save monry aand jobs in the short run, and eventually cost money as pension contributions increase, remember, the union negotiated a Tier 4.5 for new teachers, saving the city an increasing amount of money over the years. In this environment it is not a good idea to negotiate in public, if the union can craft an incentive they certainly will …
Intelligent Boogeyman

It is my belief that Bloomberg has our new UFT president Mr. Mulgrew in his back pocket. Randi never would have stood for these antics. Albert Shanker would have ended up in jail.
Vote NO

“Randi never would have stood for these antics.”

You’re kidding..right?

Randi Weingarten was the architect of the atrocity known as the 2005 contract. She decided to go to fact finding. The fact finders came back with a horrible proposal, because the city asked for the “world” and the union asked for NOTHING! Weingarten rammed it through a vote. “You have to vote for it, it’s the best we can do.” was the slogan of the union leadership. The “sheep known as NYC teachers just went along and voted for it.

QUESTION– What work rule enhancements did our Union ask for before going to mediation and fact finding this time? ANSWER….NOTHING! What did Bloomberg ask for? Once again…. the “WORLD”

Get ready to say goodbye to tenure, seniority protections, the ATRs, 10 sick days a year, and two more years with no raises! Then get ready for the Union to once again say…”You have to vote for it, it’s the best we can do.”

for once colleagues please…VOTE NO!
SciTchr

Retirement incentives do save money if they are targeted properly, which is the very reason why many states and cities use them.
Think about this: if you offer an incentive to teachers in the 18-22 year window, even if you hire a new replacement teacher, you save a little bit of money the first year, even if health benefits included (about 10-20k).You save on payroll for every year after that. Further, you lock in the pension at whatever is the agreed-upon amount.If I stay, it will likely be for another 7 years, and pension very much larger. The key to making an incentive work is to offer it to teachers still young enough to do something else for a few years
Peter

Sci Teacher

1. An actuary has to certify that the pension fund can afford to absorb additional thousands of teachers, and,

2. The addition of thousands of unanticipated retirees increases the city contributions, it saves money and jobs in year one, by year ten it costs the city more dollars, of course its another mayor’s headache. Remember: the younger you allow teachers to retiree the longer they collect and the greater the stress on the fund, in NYS pension funds must be adequately funded by city contributions.
sharese smith

Math Teacher and Justin, I totally agree with you. I went to a 4 year college, completed 2 semesters of student-teaching, and I am certified (initial), but I still can’t be hired once again. I worked 2 years as a sub about to finish my masters and its sad that I will still be a sub. Yes, there won’t be any lay offs, but what about lifting this hiring freeze. What about the individuals who invested so much for this career to be left out again. this shit is depressing and unfair
SciTchr

Peter, you are absolutely right-the numbers do need to be certified.I did say that the incentive (which really looks unlikely at this point) needs to be targeted to work properly. Some of the early incentives were basically gifts to those already in the retirement age. If targeted carefully, you will get teachers like me willing to leave with a lower pension but still young enough to do something else. Think about paying someone like me a salary between 85-95 k for the next 7 years.Then add the additional pension entitlement. With an incentive, you 1. save a lot of money on salary for seven years. 2. lose some of that for 1-2 years for health insurance or lump sum but much less than you save. 3. save money on compensation for sick days because the payout is at a lower rate (long term savings) 4.With an immediate reduced pension you lose money for the first seven years, but save money after that.With a deferred pension, you save money the whole way.
BTW I do have a background in stats and econ., so I have run the numbers
Riccardo Aulet

Lest we forget that the illegal mayor Bloomberg got the UFT endorsement for promising the 4% raise.

That man was allowed to circumnavigate the 2 term law and we vote him back in on a bogus promise(s).

We the people deserve what we get. Bloomberg should have been shown the door. Instead, we get a egomanical mayor.
Ahhh, politics do make strange bedfellows!!!
Peter

Riccardo

1. The UFT made NO endorsement.

2. Court challenges to the City Council abrogation of term limits were unsuccessful.

3. Who knows what the raise will eventually be … while the City cries poverty, they do have a $3 billion surplus, which Bloomberg says he must put aside due to the ending of the stimulus dollars next year … is he being prudent? will a teacher jobs bill become law? impact? many months to go before the last chapter is written.
Michael Fiorillo

Peter,

The UFT leaderships’s not endorsing Thompson was effectively an endorsement of Bloomberg. And as the New York Times reported immediately after the election, Bloomberg’s political support was in fact so shallow that a concerted effort could have unseated him. But no, they had to go ahead and de facto endorse him, in the mistaken belief that it would lead to a contract. Their cravenness, and his contempt for them and his accurate assessment of their weakness, is one reason we find orselves in this position.

Weingarten’s non-endorsement/endorsement was especially so, coming as it did right on the heels of Randi her unilateral support for the extension of mayoral control, perhaps the single most catastrophic action in a long list of betrayals of teachers. She was also silent when Bloomberg purchased a third term.

As for the last chapter yet to written, let’s hope it’s not a tragedy where the bad guys win by laying waste to the kingdom.
9 percenter

Fiorillo~Oh, why don’t you run the world?

Weingarten brought us where we are today. She has moved on to destroy public education and teaching as a career nationwide.
ATat

I want my job, you don’t want 10 more students in your class, the union doesn’t want to loose 4,400 due paying members. It is a business. Even if we got 4% and older teachers make 100,000, that isn’t much. Try and remember why we started teaching, it sure was not the money!

Our Twitter Updates

Frank Thomas, DOE spokesman just told me no arrests have been made tonight at PEP despite confrontation between protesters & police earlier. 22 mins ago
RT @leoniehaimson: It's been shown repeatedly that as one schl closes another overwhelmed w/ high needs kids that small schls won't take 27 mins ago
Shael: the suggestion that kids are moved around (to large, struggling high schools) just isn't accurate. 29 mins ago
@SchoolBook: Manhattan rep @PSulliv and mayoral appointee Lisette Nieves get into an argument she tells him to get off his "soapbox” 31 mins ago
Mayoral appointee Lisette nieves chimes in on an increasingly irate @PSulliv she says he's being rude. 32 mins ago
More updates...

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jan
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29

GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

human capital (updated)

June 2, 2010

Bloomberg calls for no teacher pay raises to avoid layoffs

Tips, questions, feedback?

Follow GothamSchools

Feb. 10: You’re invited!

Recently Posted Jobs

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

Events Calendar

RSS Feeds

Our Twitter Updates

Archives

Copyright Notice