Last year, of course, he pretended to avoid utterly unnecessary layoffs by unilaterally announcing teachers would not get the raise he granted to all other city workers. This year, he's claiming there's a fiscal crisis while he sits on a 3 billion dollar surplus, a one billion dollar rainy day fund, and a few hundred million that he disappeared from the DOE. There is no reason whatsoever to fire a single teacher and the mayor is simply putting a gun to our head.
It appears the UFT President wishes to revive this deal. That's a slippery slope, and ought to be undertaken with extreme caution. Other unions are demanding a 2.5 year no layoff pledge to do so. That would get us well into Mayor4Life's fourth term. Bloomberg is wildly unpopular, and the scholastic achievements he's claimed have disappeared into the dust of NY State Exams Past, so it's possible even another hundred mil of his loose change may not buy him that.
Of course he needs to renounce his support of killing seniority so as to subvert the contract to which he agreed, and also to give teachers the raise he gave everyone else. After all, when the pattern is a piece of crap, he always insists we take it or give him the sun, moon and stars to better it.
And we need these agreements in writing, with express provisions that Bloomberg go to prison and personally finance them anyway if he once again lies to us. There must be no loopholes, and there must be no good faith, as he has shown none over the interminable decade he has owned New York City.
After we secure these agreements, we can talk. Before that, we can inform the public of his rampant hypocrisy. And then, maybe we can impeach him over his no-bid contracts that leave children to freeze waiting for buses that don't come, and the 600 million he lost to his no-bid buds at CityTime. Maybe we can finally start a worthwhile trend.
Posts
