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As a new teacher who has been kept out of the DOE system for two years now despite having a certification and teaching experience, I find it hard to defend the union. Of course, I would rather have them then not have them, even though for me having a union means being kept out of a job.

I think the union has been sowing the seeds of its own destruction for a long time by being inflexible and creating things that are just plain inefficient. For instance, I work at my school as a long-term sub because I cannot be hired full-time due to the hiring freeze. I work between 10 and 12 hours a day and get paid less for doing the same job as all the other teachers at my school and I get no benefits. Meanwhile, an ATR (a teacher who for one reason or another lost their job and is still on the city’s payroll) reports to work at my school and reads the newspaper all day, receiving full salary and benefits. How does that make any sense?

By sheltering people forever from the whims of the labor market, the unions have created an unsustainable strain on the budget. They are effectively handing the mayor a mandate to destroy them by pointing out the way they abuse their power. We need our unions. Our unions need to operate in a less short-sighted and more cooperative fashion so that we can keep them.

For a second there, it sounded like you were blaming the union for the hiring freeze. I’m sure you realize that it was the mayor’s decision to freeze new hires (one that he didn’t necessarily have to make so soon, because there was lots more fat in the central and network budgets that could have been cut. But that’s for a different post).

It also sounded like you were blaming the union fro the presence of so many ATRs at your school and in the system. I’m sure you realize that the increase in the reserve is due in large part to school closings -a mayoral initiative- and that the mayor knew this was coming and failed to address the issue in 2007 (the last time the guy bothered to work out a contract for the city’s teachers (which always address very genuine issues around job protection vs. balancing a healthy system for the kids)).

But I actually don’t have much issue the opinions you shared (probably because I’ve read them a hundred million times by now). I just wanted to tell you this: UFT is the most powerful local union in the US, and it’s by no means going destroy itself by protecting its members in this capacity … and especially not by some height challenged flat footed blow-hard who changes laws that don’t suit his agendas rather than working within them, and spends -wastes, actually- his credibility on such insane statements like ‘I’m going to layoff 21,000 teachers!’ and ‘The best teachers in the city are the new ones!!’

You said we need the union. You’re right, we do. But I hope you come to understand that we need them because incredible people (meaning people without much credit or credibility) run our system, while the credible ones are stuck working 10 – 12 hours every day … and something has to be a balance for that.

I am an ATR, and I can assure you that I am not sitting around reading the paper all day. I teach a full program, albeit out of license for a good part of the day. I plan lessons, get observed, call parents, give tests and grades, etc, just like any other teacher in the building. The only differences between me and an appointed teacher at this school are that I have no right to fill out a preference sheet at the end of the year in the hope of getting a better program, and I must leave in June and be bounced to yet another school, no matter how hard I work here. Oh, and that I am going to be laid off if Bloombuck$ does as he says.