First Prize Is a 3% Raise
Second Prize Is a Set of Steak Knives
Third Place Is You're Fired
I want to take a crack at a local story before Travis Armstrong gets ahold of it in his no spin zone that makes Bill O'Reilly look like a poster child for sanity. (Of course, if the other blogs in town are right Armstrong has gone missing of late--perhaps he's in Cheney's undisclosed location, safe from the cabal, while Cheney is in Iraq in the secure Green Zone.) In today's Santa Barbara Newsroom Rob Kuznia reports, "The Santa Barbara school board laid off 48 teachers Tuesday night, largely in an effort to find money to give the rest of the K-12 school system’s 800-plus teachers a union-negotiated raise."
Union-haters are going to jump on that line and claim, "See, that's what unions do, get their own members canned." But as the full article points out, the real story isn't that simple. (Quick digression: of course in the News-Press the story would end with that sentence so as to better buttress editorial beliefs, which is why Kuznia has to be writing somewhere else right now.) Employers almost always try to play employees off each other, especially at the bargaining table. It happened with Unit 18 lecturers at the UC: when the Office of the President finally came through with something like a deal after years of bargaining, it helped lecturers who had taught for 6+ years and got through the legendary "eye of the needle" review (much of the work of tenure, all to get 3-year contracts instead of single year contracts), but didn't do as much for those with less seniority. Guess which group is in the majority. Guess which group was more invested in the first place and likely to be part of the bargaining team.
The same thing happened with the last grocery workers strike, when current employees got more benefits than new hires. This surely helps sell a contract, since future workers don't get a vote to ratify, but that's just the beginning of good rewards for the employer. It suddenly becomes less positive to be a new hire, so fewer people stick around. (Of course, the employer also believes there's an endless supply of talented employees, and losing people doesn't matter.) Of course now employees are split into two camps--the have-a-bits and the need-a-lots--so it's easier for the employer to negotiate with a much less unified union next time.
It's really surprising, given these patterns, that so many people aren't too fond of employers, no?
I feel for the teachers laid off, I do, but here's hoping they don't lose their jobs AND become evidence for the horribleness of unions, too. As the article says, "the raise--3 percent per year for three years--puts Santa Barbara teacher salaries more in line with others across the county." A 3% raise is nice, but it's certainly not anything out of line and indeed is behind what teachers would get if they were on Social Security (a 3.3% cost of living increase).
And don't think teachers make too much already. After all, if people don't learn, people can't work and our economy goes (further?) into the crapper. Here's what one impressive national think tank said last summer:
The College Board's Center for Innovative Thought, whose members include business and academic leaders, calls for a new education compact between America and its teachers, starting with the establishment of a public-private Teachers' Trust to finance an immediate pay increase of 15 to 20 percent and targeted programs to increase the number of qualified math and science teachers.
That call for change leaves us 12-17% behind annually. I don't even have children and that scares me.
Union-haters are going to jump on that line and claim, "See, that's what unions do, get their own members canned." But as the full article points out, the real story isn't that simple. (Quick digression: of course in the News-Press the story would end with that sentence so as to better buttress editorial beliefs, which is why Kuznia has to be writing somewhere else right now.) Employers almost always try to play employees off each other, especially at the bargaining table. It happened with Unit 18 lecturers at the UC: when the Office of the President finally came through with something like a deal after years of bargaining, it helped lecturers who had taught for 6+ years and got through the legendary "eye of the needle" review (much of the work of tenure, all to get 3-year contracts instead of single year contracts), but didn't do as much for those with less seniority. Guess which group is in the majority. Guess which group was more invested in the first place and likely to be part of the bargaining team.
The same thing happened with the last grocery workers strike, when current employees got more benefits than new hires. This surely helps sell a contract, since future workers don't get a vote to ratify, but that's just the beginning of good rewards for the employer. It suddenly becomes less positive to be a new hire, so fewer people stick around. (Of course, the employer also believes there's an endless supply of talented employees, and losing people doesn't matter.) Of course now employees are split into two camps--the have-a-bits and the need-a-lots--so it's easier for the employer to negotiate with a much less unified union next time.
It's really surprising, given these patterns, that so many people aren't too fond of employers, no?
I feel for the teachers laid off, I do, but here's hoping they don't lose their jobs AND become evidence for the horribleness of unions, too. As the article says, "the raise--3 percent per year for three years--puts Santa Barbara teacher salaries more in line with others across the county." A 3% raise is nice, but it's certainly not anything out of line and indeed is behind what teachers would get if they were on Social Security (a 3.3% cost of living increase).
And don't think teachers make too much already. After all, if people don't learn, people can't work and our economy goes (further?) into the crapper. Here's what one impressive national think tank said last summer:
The College Board's Center for Innovative Thought, whose members include business and academic leaders, calls for a new education compact between America and its teachers, starting with the establishment of a public-private Teachers' Trust to finance an immediate pay increase of 15 to 20 percent and targeted programs to increase the number of qualified math and science teachers.
That call for change leaves us 12-17% behind annually. I don't even have children and that scares me.
Labels: education, the way employers get you even as they pretend to do good
posted by George at 9:38 PM
8 comments
