Oh Unions

[kageisuke]

Sorry to spam but:

Unionized Rhode Island Teachers Refuse To Work 25 Minutes More Per Day, So Town Fires All Of Them

Good fucking riddance, I say. Give that money to teachers who care.

And I found this first article Marriage in America: The frayed knot interesting. Actually, a lot of stuff on that page I found interesting 8D

Comments

[losers-day.livejournal.com]

Wow, good job Home State. Gooood job. I'm not from Central Falls, but I'm familiar with their status as low-performing. ;;; I mean, there's a little holding in the claims about the students not wanting to learn, but this isn't exactly a new development in that part of the state, so it's really not the current students who are to blame.

That's unusual though, that they would just fire all of them. It kinda surprised me. I'm used to teachers back home being catered to by the towns, so it was kind of a shock. There was one year when I was in middle school that the high school teachers went on strike and it delayed the opening of the school like two weeks. XD;; This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, for Central Falls.

[kageisuke.livejournal.com]

From what I read, a lot of the students are transient, moving around all the time. They barely speak english in some cases. I blame the parents for that more than the teachers, because they're sacrificing the child's education. But if they have to move where the jobs are to live, I can kinda see it from that perspective too.

The reason they were ALL fired was because they're all Union. Even if some of the teachers were fine with it, they wouldn't be allowed to break ranks [become a scab] and say they'd stay. The school has to negotiate with the union rep, not individual teachers. While they might have been able to negotiate different terms with different teachers, the union discourages individuals from negotiating contracts and other business matters themselves. That's what you're paying for when you join.

It also says she has the ability to hire back no more than 50% of the previous staff. So the ones who WANT to work, don't mind the extra hours, or at least want to keep their jobs, can be hired back, but only half of them. Seriously though, they are getting paid GOOD for teachers, and I'm happy they do get paid well, but I'm NOT happy at the reason why they're getting paid so well.

[losers-day.livejournal.com]

(Aww, that icon is cute. X3;)

Well, there is that. I don't think the article goes into it, but almost all of the public schools in that part of the state score pretty badly too - Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, etc are always at the very bottom, for public schools anyway, and they're all right next to each other. They're the city schools for Rhode Island. Though, I'm fairly certain there was some bias involved with the people who explained that part of it to me, since the suburban schools and the rural schools score really well most of the time. My school was kind of upper-middle range (14/52 I think? Not the top ten, but not horrible either) and they would always be like "well at least we're not the city schools".

Oh, I understand they're union. :O I just can't remember anyone in RI firing all the teachers before now, instead of just giving into the union's demands, or renegotiating.

Yeah, I hear you on how much they're getting paid though. They really shouldn't be complaining...I'm glad that some can be hired back though, because I'm sure not all of them agree with the union on this one, even if only half can be hired back.

[kageisuke.livejournal.com]

XD I enjoy the icon. It's fun 8D

City schools always seem to suffer that kind of fate, and I'm wondering about all the factors that makes that true more often than not. I was a happy little suburbanite with a decent school, so *shrugs*

Hnnn, I don't know if she had a choice but to fire them all. The way they were talking it was either make those changes or get new staff who'll do what's necessary.

Yeah. But I also read in the comments that they weren't getting NO additional pay. But 30 dollars an hour for some of the things that were being required.

[havocmangawip.livejournal.com]

With many schools requiring an advanced degree for permanent certification, teachers are NOT being paid "too much". An education comparable to an MSEd in many other fields would pay much more.

Former teacher... I hated the politics game and I definitely disliked the administration.

I was a new teacher with most of my MSEd and was getting about 38k a year BEFORE taxes in California, 10 years ago. That worked out to a little over 1,800 after taxes. I stayed after school and put in about 20 hours a week at home to get things where I wanted them.

That's a 50+ hour work week.

I know that schools have it hard and that this school was in trouble, but honestly... they wanted to have the option to accept terms and negotiate. (I still hate unions... for some things. Mine didn't do me ANY good and I'd like 24 months x 70.00 bucks back!)

THIS is one of the reasons that the best and brightest are NOT teaching.

[kageisuke.livejournal.com]

Fff, I can agree with that not being paid too much part. With how much they're getting paid, I think that's amazing and happy for them, to a certain extent.

See, one thing I don't understand is how administration gets paid more than the teachers who actually do the job. Just like managers vs the workers. The paperwork and ordering cannot be more work than actually dealing with the customers.

See, I know that teachers work a lot of unpaid hours. Grading papers, lesson plans, and tutoring before or after work hours. Then there's the fact they never have enough supplies and bring stuff from home. Pens, pencils, and in the younger years, construction paper, glue, ect. [My mother was upset that in my sister's school the required school supplies were for communal use and not just your child's. It was because we have a lot on the free lunch program ect. Crayons, ect are not the same as a box of tissues, if you ask me. I understand that the teachers don't want to have to buy EVERYTHING for the needy, but still, other parents who manage to pay for their child shouldn't be forced to provide for someone else's, especially if they probably won't treat the stuff with respect and just toss it all over the place.]

Also, reading other articles that were linked, they DID try to negotiate. With the union. The union didn't like the terms [and when do they ever? I've seen them going on strike for more pay this year when we've had record deficits in the budget. They want more pay and they don't care where the money comes from.] So after negotiations failed, she just fired them all and is now having a clean slate to hire back those who 1. want their job back; 2. show significant improvements with their students.