We Will Get Our Promised Rain in May

I was fairly panicked by de Blasio's disgusting swipe at educators. As for the remedy, I don't generally have a lot of faith in arbitrators. I've seen them make terrible decisions, and more than one of them has left me wondering whether they were hard of reading. So I was a little more than apprehensive when the supposedly liberal mayor of NYC effectively said, "Screw you, I'm not paying you until I'm good and ready."

Yesterday I parodied the chancellor again, though this time he hadn't actually written us. I don't know exactly how this man musters the gall to write to us as though he's our friend. He's shown he doesn't care about us at all, and raised not a peep when his boss decided to rob us at the last minute. Last night I wrote the following to members at my school, including an outrageous typo, but I've decided not to bother correcting it. 

It makes as much sense as anything else in the year of double twenties.

 

In case you haven't heard, and in case you haven't read Michael Mulgrew's letter, we will get our retro. The arbitrator ruled we will get half at the end of this month, and half in July. While that's not what we expected, it is a far better result than we could've gotten. There will also be no UFT layoffs this year, and we will get our promised rain in May. I'd have preferred a full immediate payment, but you never know with arbitrators. This one wasn't perfect, but was very good. If you've maxed out your TDA, it may still be worth it. There are great advantages in being union. I wish you a great three day weekend. Best regards, Arthur