Oct 5, 2005 4:39 PM
UFT, City, DOE in tentative
pact
Deal calls for 15% pay hike over 52
months
Resolving a two-and-a-half year battle that brought the
union to the brink of a strike, the United Federation of Teachers and the city reached
a tentative agreement on Oct. 2 on a new 52- month contract that calls for a 15
percent wage increase for all members and sensible approaches to the changes
recommended by the independent fact-finders’ report.
As UFT President Randi Weingarten promised at the special Sept. 20 session of the Delegate Assembly, the UFT agreed to use the fact-finding recommendations as a vehicle to get to a fair contract, but sought to negotiate modifications to them on key issues.
“We said the fact-finders’ report had its pluses and minuses,” said Weingarten at a joint press conference with Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall to announce the tentative accord. “This agreement has turned many of those minuses into pluses.”
The pay increase in the new agreement, coupled with the 16-percent increase in the previous 2002 contract, increases teacher pay in New York City by more than a third, bringing it in striking distance of teacher salaries in the suburbs.
“This agreement recognizes our educators’ hard work and the outstanding results they have achieved with students,” said Weingarten. “I am particularly pleased that we have significantly closed the pay gap between our hard-working educators and their colleagues in the suburbs.”
The new agreement, which must first be approved by the Delegate Assembly on Oct. 11 and then ratified by members in a secret ballot, was signed at 6 a.m. on Oct. 3 following eight straight days of intensive negotiations. The city finally accepted the fact-finders’ report as a road map and returned to the table on Sept. 26 after elected officials, community leaders and parents forcefully rallied behind the union during two weeks of high-profile protests and events.
The fact-finders had recommended an 11.4 percent increase compounded over three years in exchange for extra time and greater principal discretion in hirings and assignments.
In the proposed settlement, the UFT was able to improve upon those economic terms by eliminating the additional unpaid coverages for middle and high school teachers and having each of the first two wage increases take effect six months earlier, which increased the retroactive pay owed members by nearly 65 percent. The two sides also agreed to extend the contract another year for an additional 3.25 percent increase.
Like the fact-finders’ recommendations, the tentative accord preserves members’ core rights regarding due process and job security for teachers who are excessed, while reestablishing a uniform school day. In light of the shift to more principal discretion, the union was able to get new protections for educators against principals’ abuse of power and against false accusations of corporal punishment and sexual misconduct.
The union also fought to shield teachers from the excessive micromanagement that they were subjected to in the previous school year. Teachers can no longer be disciplined for “the format of bulletin boards, the arrangement of classroom furniture and the exact duration of lesson units.”
“We found common-sense ways to implement the fact-finders’ recommendations while providing important safeguards for the teachers and other educators,” said Weingarten.
The tentative accord, which runs from June 1, 2003 to Oct. 12, 2007, calls for a 2 percent pay increase retroactive to Dec. 1, 2003; a 3.5 percent increase retroactive to Dec. 1, 2004; a 5.5 percent increase effective Nov. 1, 2005; and a 3.25 percent increase effective Oct. 1, 2006.
Under the tentative agreement, the salary of a teacher with five years on the job and 30 credits above a master’s degree would rise from $50,828 to $58,452, while the salary of a teacher at the top of the pay scale would jump from $81,232 to $93,416.
All current members will receive the full 15 percent increase, but starting pay for new teachers, as of October 2006, will rise 9 percent, from $39,000 to $42,512. Nearly every other municipal union, by contrast, agreed to reduce starting pay for new hires in order to fund a higher wage increase for incumbents.
Teachers on the job since the contract’s start will receive retroactive pay ranging from $2,800 to $5,770, while paras will receive up to $1,924. Educators who retired during the past 28 months are also entitled to retroactive pay.
The city and the union agreed to seek state legislation granting teachers hired after July 1, 1973, the right to retire with no penalty at age 55 with 25 years of service. Currently, teachers in Tiers II and IV must wait until they turn 62 to retire with a full pension.
The union also was able to address inequities among its functional chapters. The agreement expands the career ladder for paraprofessionals. As of October 2006, paras with a bachelor’s degree will earn at least $32,250, up from the maximum now of $27,746.
Under the tentative agreement, nurses and occupational and physical therapists would achieve their longstanding goal of a 10-month school year that coincides with the work year of teachers. The workload dispute process established for school secretaries and guidance counselors in the previous contract will now be extended to psychologists and social workers.
The two sides also crafted a sensible plan for the use of the extra time: the new 10 minutes a day proposed by the fact-finders and the 20 minutes added to the work day as part of the 2002 contract.
The extra time in the multi-session high schools and District 75 will be spread out through the school day, which will now be six hours and 50 minutes long. In other schools, the time will be parceled as 37.5 minutes of tutoring, test prep and small-group instruction immediately after regular dismissal from Monday to Thursday. (Fridays will return to six hours and 20 minutes.) Each educator will have a maximum of 10 students, and an expedited grievance procedure will be set up to remedy violations of that cap.
The union also agreed to add three professional development days to the school calendar: the two days before the Labor Day long weekend and Brooklyn-Queens Day in June.
The tentative agreement spells out a new procedure for Circular 6R, which, following the fact-finders’ report, will return some teachers to administrative duties such as home room, bus duty and cafeteria patrol. The new process was crafted to give as many teachers as possible their preference in assignment, to rotate unpopular duties equitably, and to ensure that teachers are not compelled to do an administrative assignment two years in a row.
In another modification to the fact-finders’ report, the city and the union agreed to expand citywide District 9’s lead teacher program that was initiated by the UFT and parents. In that acclaimed pilot program, experienced teachers receive an extra $10,000 for sharing their expertise with other teachers in struggling schools.
The tentative agreement calls for ending seniority transfers, a change avidly sought by Chancellor Klein, and bumping, a change sought by both parties. All vacancies will be advertised citywide, up from only half currently, and the current restrictions on excessed teachers applying for posts outside their district will be lifted.
As set out in the fact-finders’ report, both sides agreed to expedite the process for removing teachers guilty of sexual abuse of a minor or convicted of a felony. The disciplinary process for teachers accused of chronic lateness or absenteeism will also be accelerated. But the union fought for additional rights for teachers falsely accused of sexual misconduct or corporal punishment.
The UFT maintained the intense public pressure on Mayor Bloomberg right up to the eve of the agreement, when more than 1,000 teachers protested at the Columbus Day parade on Staten Island.
The union garnered support from all quarters, including the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, whose executive board passed a resolution on Sept. 28 supporting teachers in their effort to obtain a fair contract.
The UFT’s stepped-up actions began immediately after the Sept. 20 Delegate Assembly with a press conference on the steps of City Hall attended by an array of local and state elected officials on Sept. 22. The drumbeat continued with a large gathering of Brooklyn parents on Sept. 27, a demonstration outside an Upper West Side school that Chancellor Klein was visiting that same day, and a protest along two major boulevards in Queens in Region 3 on Sept. 28. The call for a fair contract grew louder on Sept. 29, when hundreds of community leaders, clergy, union officials and parents pledged their support for the UFT at a breakfast at union headquarters.
That same week, the
UFT released a new radio ad asking New Yorkers to call Bloomberg to express
their disappointment with his refusal to bargain with the union. The telephone
number announced in the ad was jammed with calls, union officials said.