Scraping the Skies

That was how a piece in the UFT blog Edwize characterized the 2005 contract. The guy who wrote the piece used a false name, then retired at the end of the year to score a cool patronage gig, The rest of us got extra time, hall patrols, lunchroom duty, the ATR brigade, and lost the right to grieve file letters simply because they were factually untrue.

At the time, people like me warned against the contract. We said that while money comes and goes, hall patrol is forever. For example, we knew that there were contracts with no raises. One of them was very recent, having been predicated by a fraudulent vote that sent DC37 leaders to jail. No one objects to things like that, and if every employee of NYC is screwed, that's just the way things go.

At this point, things are even worse than I could have predicted. In fact, not only did we not get a raise during the last round of pattern bargaining, but virtually everyone else in the city did. This means that whatever monetary gains we earned by "scraping the skies" have been wiped out, and we're doing this for nothing.

I go to many meetings, and I have not heard a single UFT rep address the fact that we are not one, but two contracts behind. I can only wonder whether leadership plans to ignore that fact and move ahead as though it didn't exist. I'm told we're involved with PERB, which for us would be non-binding. I have no idea whether or not PERB will enforce the pattern. You may recall that when the pattern is a piece of crap, as it most often is, it's sacrosanct.

When the pattern is 8%, and we should have gotten it years ago, is it still mandatory? Or is screwing working teachers the exception that proves the rule?

We'll soon know.