Retro coming next week, & again UFT's double-dipping on the dues

Just to remind folks: NYC held out against giving teachers a contract after Randi Weingarten's 2005 epic giveback contract.  Costs of NYC living climbed in the years since that contract ran out, but the new 2014 contract stretched out the raise slowly. Plus, the retro pay, the raise we should have gotten was illogically spread out --to 2020!
So, of course, yet again, the Tier VI teachers will scratch their heads and wonder what this retro talk is.

Each time we have been given a retro payment the UFT has dipped in for dues once for the twice a month paycheck, and a second time for the giving us the retro. The union claims that this was for the work of negotiating the contract. But the UFT needs to be rewarded multiple times for this?

Be forewarned: next week you will get a retro payment, your next to last retro payment. (The last will come in 2020.) But you will see dues taken out twice -yet again!

UFT to ATRs: your job in schools is to prep for the field supervisor; you need to advocate for yourselves

Another big topic at the UFT's official ATR meetings was observations and field supervisors.

For other topics this month in these meetings, see the postings here and here.

When you break down what the UFT's official representative says to us: your mission comes to this: your duty over all else is to be ready for demo lessons. The other tricky thing is that she is telling us that we have to do the UFT's and the DOE's work in correcting local administration misdeeds.

We are supposed to have demo lessons ready for use in case our field supervisor appears.  All UFT instructions to us are shaped around the eventuality that a field supervisor appears.
(Of course, this conflicts with the nominal purpose of our work: substituting for absent teachers in the absent teacher's subject. See this blog posting about how this naturally sets up a conflict with the students.)

Reflecting the steady theme that our main mission is to prepare for field supervisors is Amy Arundell's statement to one member that asked, how is it fair that we are judged on a lesson out of our subject, that another teacher has left, and how are we to be responsible for sub lessons that are imperfect? Her answer was that in the event that the students are distracted and off-task, then we should switch subjects and assignments and bring in our own sub lesson.

What is highly problematic is that we are judged on following certain guidelines given to ATRs. Yet, these guidelines are only distributed at the ATR meetings. And many ATRs were unaware of these meetings or the high value information disseminated at these meetings. These guidelines are not sent to all ATRs from the UFT or the DOE via email or US mail. They are not posted on the DOE or UFT websites. Wouldn't this call the absurdity and offensiveness for all to see if they were posted this way?

Thus, the DOE & the UFT treat these stipulations as the real contract. But only a fraction of the ATRs are at these ATR meetings. So, we are subject to what the DOE/UFT treat as the official contract, a contract that most ATRs are not informed of. Never mind that these stipulations of supplanting nominal class topics with our own lesson agendas or the overriding mission that we make all of our attention for the likelihood of being observed by the roving field supervisor are not in the general DOE-UFT contract or in the (between official contracts) periodically renegotiated DOE-UFT side agreements on ATRs.

Adding to the contradictory messages is the DOE/UFT line that the field supervisors are helping us find positions (which is why they ask us for our resumes). This is a highly doubtful mission of the field supervisors, because as all parties know, it is extremely rare for teachers to get placed, due to Fair School Funding, which Unity Caucus-UFT agreed to in 2007.  See this blogpost explaining how post-2018 contractual conditions drive principals to be risk-aversive and avoid hiring ATRs. With all of the observations happening it is more likely a Russian Roulette.

These are all serious concerns as the DOE has issued U ratings to ATRs based on sub setting observations.

As always comes up in these meetings the local (school) DOE administrators --usually at new, small schools-- violate the agreements. One of the most common violations is assigning ATRs to duties outside the contractual agreement, or duties such as standing hall duty if there is no sub assignment. The UFT rep at the meetings tells us that we must challenge the local administrators. This puts us in an awkward position. We could be brought up on insubordination charges or at least labeled as having a bad attitude.

Members will be relieved to know that two particular field supervisors have been removed, but the UFT cannot inform us who they are.

One major detail is that not all ATRs get field supervisors. A common thread among those getting them is that they are upper ranges of years with the DOE. It has been revealed by some retired principals that the DOE has certain spreadsheets flagging staff by salary, and that targeting is concentrated on higher salary staff. Another factor in play as to whether teachers get targeted by field supervisors is whether teachers have taken many sick days. This is problematic because this creates an inducement to not stay home and shield staff and students from one's illness. Also, it intimidates teachers and other excessed staff from giving attention to ailing children or parents. The latter is particularly a problem for the middle aged ATRs who are tending to rising needs of aging parents. What an awful thing to do- pressure people to keep a distance from parents in their parents' last years.

Basically, the UFT is telling us that we have to be our own advocate. In fact our appointed advocate has said so much: "You have to stand up for yourselves!"  This is problematic. The UFT must have high-level meetings with  the DOE to enforce these. When the DOE wants something done it makes sure all principals comply, such as training in security procedures. (By the way, parents would be interested in knowing that ATRs are routinely denied keys. In emergencies teachers are supposed to lock rooms. But this is not an option for ATRs, since they are usually denied keys.)

Besides, ATRs have enough stress, preparing for lessons for kids we don't know and trying to fit in, in alien territory, to have the added job of advocating for ourselves.

Hey, UFT, do your job and advocate for us. Don't expect us to do it.

Why is the ATR pool still growing under deBlasio? Plus some questions ahead of the upcoming UFT ATR meetings

What's happening with the growing ATR pool?

It is unconfirmed that the Absent Teacher Reserve Pool has grown to as many as 4,000. What is driving the increasing number of excessed DOE staff? Despite the end of Bloomberg era closures, the growth of new schools and the growth of charters continues. As newer schools grow, taking more students, more classrooms, more teachers, existing schools lose students, lose space and lose staff. For those not in the know, the ATR pool includes guidance counselors (colloquially called ACRs, as they number in the hundreds), social workers, psychologists, librarians, besides strictly instructional staff. And by the way, the UFT has failed to unionize or demand that the DOE permanently hire various professionals such as part-time or itinerant nurses and guidance counselors. The UFT tolerates this privatized staffing, euphemistically called "service providers."

The DOE/UFT tell us that people are leaving the ATR pool. The DOE and the UFT both play the same numbers games, not giving us straight numbers about the ATR pool.

Members need to ask the UFT directly:

--How many people have been appointed from the pool, into schools?  That is, how many people have truly, permanently, left the ACR/ATR pool?

--How many people are filling a maternity or illness leave position?

--How many people are are in a position only for a semester or only for the current academic year?

--Given that the Fair School Funding formula, also known as the Fair Student Funding formula, has been the reason that principals themselves cite for not permanently placing or hiring staff out of the pool, why is the UFT not aggressively fighting the Fair School Funding formula?
--Why is the UFT not fighting for an amendment to the contract to bring seniority rights into hiring practices?

--Why is the UFT not fighting the well-known practice of DOE administrators to hire new staff over members of the Absent Teacher Reserve?

Does the UFT really want all ATRs to attend their meetings?

New excessing will occur in October, as class registers stabilize, after schools have accounted for student attendance patterns. According to the DOE's arcane excessing guidelines the excessing is concentrated in batches of staff in certain licenses, for example, a school can be found compelled to excess three teachers because of declined enrollment. As a result schools, can lose vital staff such as special education teachers, librarians or guidance counselors.

The timing of the meetings at the end of September and very early in October is not the best for the excessed staff. Many teachers and other DOE staff across the city will lose their positions in schools and will enter the ATR pool, yet they will not be introduced to the DOE's protocols for ATRs, as they would receive in the official UFT meetings for ATRs.

Here again are the official ATR meetings that the UFT has scheduled for the next two weeks:

Note that many of the meetings conflict with DOE staff obligations at schools. The 2014 contract introduced new obligations for teachers and other staff to stay late at schools. At most schools these dates fall on Mondays and Tuesdays. 

We hope that your year is off to a good start. As promised, we are contacting you to let you know that the UFT will be holding informational meetings for ATRs in the coming weeks. Whether you are new to the ATR pool or not, we want to make sure you have the opportunity to ask questions and get answers.

Here are the dates and locations. Note the changed dates and times, since the announcements earlier this week, following complaints:

Queens

• Date: originally, Monday, Sept. 28. Rescheduled to Wednesday, Sept. 30, due to complaints about Sept. 28 falling on Sukhot (the UFT has not shared this change thru mass email; details and of this change have spread by word of mouth)
• Time: 4–6 p.m.
• Location: UFT Queens borough office at 97-77 Queens Blvd. Directions »

Bronx

• Date: Monday, Sept. 28, still, despite = Sukhot
• Time: 4:30–6 p.m. Note the later start time, but not the later finishing time.
• Location: UFT Bronx borough office at 2500 Halsey St. Directions »

Manhattan

• Date: Thursday, Oct. 1
• Time: 4–6 p.m.
• Location: UFT headquarters at 52 Broadway Directions »

Staten Island

• Date: Thursday, Oct. 1
• Time: 4–6 p.m.
• Location: UFT Staten Island borough office at 4456 Amboy Road Directions »

Brooklyn

• Date: Monday, Oct. 5, difficult for many teachers because 2014 contract compels teachers to stay late on two days, usually Monday and Tuesday; and at many schools faculty conferences (a late day, UFT brass, in case you didn't know) fall on the first Monday of the month
• Time: 4:30–6 p.m. Later starting time, but original finishing time, asinthe Bronx meetings.
• Location: UFT Brooklyn borough office at 335 Adams St. Directions »

Field Supervisors, the proverbial DOE Sandmen vs. ATRs

Teacher ratings for the year are out and the DOE is giving career jeopardizing evaluation ratings that arise from teaching in substituting contexts. New York City excessed teachers, ATRs, if you haven't gotten your rating yet, click to this link.

As being covered well at the Chaz blog and the ICEUFT blog, the DOE has been giving U ratings to ATRs in substitute assignments. Read the blogs. Are there any ATRs writing comments defending the DOEUFT's status quo, defending the UFT's performance?

The observations of ATRs in rotating assignments is unprofessional and unacceptable on several counts:

*The ATRs often don't know the students.

*The ATRs often have been covering a class out of license, with or without the regular teacher's lesson plan.

*The ATRs are told to differentiate lessons for the students, but they have not met them or have not been provided their IEPs or other personal data such as ELL status.

*The people tolerating or designing these policies from De Blasio, on down to Farina, to ATR central, to the field supervisors are forgetting what they probably observed from their own childhood experiences – students do not consider substitutes worthy of respect, and the older the students, the less likely that they are to do the classwork.

*The ATRs are being evaluated on factors that are not sanctioned by the DOE-UFT contract: Common Core and Danielson, when the ATRs are supposed to be evaluated under "Teaching for the 21st Century."
*Many ATRs are getting their first stream of U ratings and letters in the file in 21 years. Doesn't it seem like Farina's DOE is trying to beat the clock to prevent teachers from collecting full pensions. 

We ought to recognize the bigger picture of what is happening. Just as with the Sandmen in the film "Logan's Run," who hunt down people for termination the Runners, those people over 30 years of age that refuse to submit to euthenasia, this U-rating process is feeding into larger societal trends of deprofessionalizing, of ending careers of people over 45, of accomplishing the effective breaking of tenure, of evading paying full pensions due, all goals of reformer politicians such as Cuomo. Age discrimination is rampant in the employment field. The DOE is accomplishing the introduction of the larger social trend of terminating or harassment of workers over 45. On the latter, see the report, "Is 45 the new old age in the workplace?" which references "Logan's Run." 

The DOEUFT: The DOE can do all of this, unimpeded because the Mulgrew (Unity & New Action endorsed) and Barr led UFT does not and will not make priorities out of protecting ATRs and abiding the contract. Instead, the UFT continuously refuses to allow ATRs to have their own true representatives. See for example here and here.

Violation of union obligations to ATRs is the by-product of the UFT's dogged refusal to allow true, accountable representatives. While it may not be actual collusion, in end result: allowing the destruction of professional lives, the effect is as though there is collusion.

Things were better under Cathie Black: The UFT actually gains from the absurd system of ATRs in rotation, and playing along with the fraud that ATRs just need to try harder to find jobs during the Open Market Transfer period. From a budgetary perspective it would make sense to place ATRs. However, the UFT goes along with the rotation system, one of the early innovations of Chancellor Walcott. Here's how the UFT benefits: the UFT draws in full dues for the ATRs in rotations plus it pulls in dues from those teachers in positions that the ATRs could have otherwise filled. So, the UFT benefits by getting two dues income streams. It is curious that the UFT treasurer is in a group message to ATRs. Are the DOE and the UFT coordinating on certain levels that ATRs should know about but do not? See the latest post at atrnyc.blogspot.com 

Delegates that support ACRs/ATRs and educators will support these resolutions at Wednesday's UFT Delegate Assembly

Resolution for Full Union Representation for ATRs
Please raise for NEXT MONTH’S AGENDA
Whereas, the Delegate Assembly is the highest policy making body in the United Federation of
Teachers, and
Whereas, federal labor law requires that policy making bodies within a union be democratically
elected with each member entitled to a vote, and
Whereas, Absent Teacher Reserves (ATRs) are not entitled to vote in Chapter Elections unless they
happen to be working in a school that has a Chapter Election during a particular week that the ATR is
working in a school, and
Whereas, unions can set up reasonable rules as to who can run for office, but it is not reasonable that
ATRs including Leave Replacement Teachers and Provisional Teachers cannot run or serve as
Delegates or Chapter Leaders simply because they belong to no Chapter, and
Whereas, the ATR position has now been embedded in the UFT contract in Section 16 of the 2014
Memorandum of Agreement, therefore be it
Resolved, that the UFT will immediately create a Functional Chapter to represent the interests of
ATRs, Leave Replacement Teachers and Provisional Teachers.
Movement of Rank and File Educators is the Social
Justice Caucus of the UFT- New York City’s Teachers union.
We are a positive alternative to the current union leadership.
Want to talk MORE?
Join us for a post-DA gathering at 6 pm, just a few blocks away at
the White Horse Tavern, 25 Bridge St.

RESOLUTION FOR THE UFT TO ENDORSE HOWIE HAWKINS FOR GOVERNOR
& BRIAN JONES FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR - Please raise for THIS MONTH’S AGENDA
Whereas, both New York State gubernatorial candidates Andrew Cuomo and Rob Astorino vocally
support the privatization of education through the expansion of charter schools, and the Green Party
ticket of Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones oppose charter schools, and
Whereas, Andrew Cuomo has pushed through an expansion of testing statewide and the punitive linking of test scores to teacher evaluations, while the Hawkins/Jones ticket opposes an emphasis on
testing, and
Whereas, Andrew Cuomo implemented a destructive tax cap that has forced massive layoffs of teachers in upstate districts, and
Whereas, the New York State AFL-CIO and the New York State United Teachers have declined to endorse
Cuomo because of his anti-education policies, and
Whereas the Buffalo Teachers Federation, Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association, East Williston Teachers Association, Lakeland Federation of Teachers, Diane Ravitch, the Coalition for Public Education,
the Independent Commission on Public Education and three local NYC Democratic clubs have all
endorsed the Hawkins/Jones ticket, and
Whereas, the Hawkins/Jones platform of a Green New Deal calls for equitable funding for all of our
schools, reduced class sizes across the state, support for programs that promote desegregation in
our schools, an end to zero-tolerance discipline policies driving the school-to-prison pipeline,
and allowing schools to develop methods of assessment organic to the learning process, and
Whereas, Astorino and Cuomo are both millionaires while Hawkins and Jones are both union activists,
Hawkins in Teamsters, Jones in the UFT and PSC, therefore be it,
Resolved, the United Federation of Teachers endorses Howie Hawkins for Governor of New York State and Brian Jones for Lieutenant Governor. Be it further
Resolved, the UFT, through COPE, inform its members of this endorsement, the contrasts between the candidates on key education issues, and mobilize its members to support the Hawkins/Jones campaign.

Some goals to pose in the ATR meetings at the UFT borough offices

Some goals to pose to Amy Arundell and the UFT in the ATR meetings at the borough offices on September 9 (Manhattan and Queens), September 11 (Staten Island) and September 12 (Bronx). The Brooklyn meeting was held on September 8.

1. Points We Want to Make

• Was the return to the previous way of funding teachers’ salaries, so as to remove the “roadblock” of higher salary costs from principals’ consideration when hiring, a part of the contract negotiation? Why not?
• Last school year, some ATR members were observed by their field supervisors, out of license. Why did the UFT allow this?

• Recommend that next school year, the DOE arranges for all current ATR members, to collectively meet, to have a day of professional development. At the same event, allow the UFT to hold its annual UFT meeting for ATRs that is currently held borough-wide, after working hours.
• Demand protection from physical harm from students and consequences for their actions, if it does occur.

2) Questions to ask at the UFT’s ATR Meetings

• Considering that a significant number of students are reading below grade level, what is the UFT doing to urge the DOE to put librarians back in schools and reading teachers back in the classrooms?
• Why were many members of the ATR, who applied on the “Open Market System,” not given interviews?
• How many members of the ATR were appointed to positions prior to the beginning of the school year?
• Explain who pays ATR members’ salaries if hired provisionally versus being appointed. How long does the DOE pay/contribute to their salaries once in these positions?
• What plans are underway, by the DOE, to create opportunities/new programs for ATR members with Art, Music and CTE Trade licenses?
• What happens to ATR teachers who were U-rated last school year?
• Why didn’t the UFT respond to the repeated lies and/or attacks on members of the ATR pool by the media (“Crain's,” the “NY Daily News,” the “NY Post,” “WNYC,” the “NY Times” and the “Wall Street Journal”) and Chancellor Farina?
• Why is the UFT “turning a blind eye” in many cases to ATR members’ complaints of harassment by school administrators or ATR field supervisors?
• If ATR members are terminated after 3020a hearings, for unprofessional behavior, do the members lose their entire pension minus the years they contributed?
• Despite repeated requests for a definition of “unprofessional behavior” on the part of ATR members, which could result in an expedited 3020a hearing and ultimately, termination, why is the UFT’s answer vague or nil? Stating that the arbitrators will be able to recognize such behavior is not considered an adequate response, according to the ATR pool. How may the ATR avoid such problematic practices if they don’t know what they are? Why are ATR members singled out for disparate treatment, while the remaining membership is not?
• According to chancellor there will be no forced placement. Then explain how ATR members, who do not accept a position in their license area and in their borough, are to be considered as resigning?

3) Goals

• The UFT should allow ACRs and ATRs to have borough-level elected representatives with Delegate Assembly voting rights, as our number at approximately 1,000 is comparable to the number of UFT members in many districts.
• The UFT should facilitate the creation of new positions for borough representatives dedicated to the ATR pool.
• Due to that fact that the following incidents happen quite frequently, instead of putting the onus on ATR members to complain to Chapter Leaders or UFT representatives, the UFT should inform school administrators to:
  • stop assigning ATR teachers to do clerical tasks.
  • stop assigning multiple periods of cafeteria, hall and bathroom duty.
  • inform School Safety that ATR members do not have to scan.
  • insist that schools provide bathroom, classroom and elevator keys.
• The UFT should insist that the DOE puts in writing, in explicit detail, a list of the unprofessional behaviors that principals can use to return ATR members back in rotation, and that could result in an expedited hearing and ultimately, their termination.

A displaced teacher speaks out on the Contract on Educators

The leadership of the UFT, Michael Mulgrew, along with the Mayor, have subverted and usurped the rights of our union members. This will remove our union relationship with the rank and file of our union brothers and sisters in other unions, not only in NY, but around the country. Our leadership is out of touch with its members and our brethren around the country.
Today I shed tears for our union, and its soon-to-be isolation from others fighting for bargaining power and right to make a living from their labor. My tears will now be a path to putting my boots on the ground and my condemnation in the air, vocal cords wanting to yell out my adamant cry for change. The courage to speak out makes me free.

The tentative UFT contract's "problematic" clause seems legally dubious

As writers at the ICEUFT blog have emphasized the standard for discipline of ATRs is tricky: "The “Problematic” Language is Not the Only Part of the Agreement that is Problematic". It is based on a label of behavior as "problematic;" but this is troublesome, as the term is not precisely defined in the tentative DOE-UFT 2014 contract.

The beginning of the article describes the fast-track expedited dealing with targeted ATRs:

Principal removal of ATR after assignment. Under the proposed contract a principal (not the teacher) has the complete discretion to return a teacher to the ATR pool. If the return is based on “problematic behavior,” defined as “behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations established for professionals working in school.” An ATR accused in two writings within two years of this “problematic behavior” may be accused of a “pattern of problematic behavior” which can become the basis of an “expedited 3020-a hearing” in which a hearing must be completed in one day (half day to each side) within 20 days that the teacher requests a hearing. The decision must be made within 15 days of the hearing date.

The article closes with this conclusion which sums up how this sets a bad precedent for teachers in general, going into the future.
The acceptance of this procedure as a perceived benefit signals our union’s position in future contracts where it appears all teachers will “enjoy” the benefit of expedited and ill-defined termination proceedings.
This proposal is anathema to the good order of the teaching profession and must be completely understood before it is blindly accepted.

Another ICEUFT blogpost addresses how Mulgrew is conceding the ability for the "problematic" to be determined by others in the future. (May 13: "Mulgrew Admits He'll Leave Critical Issues to Others in Proposed Contract.")

This contract rests on disciplining teachers by terms that will be figured out at sometime down the line. Essentially, this has the potential of handing to arbitrators a blank slate on which to write discipline law. This overrides the state's 3020-a law, taking away some of the protections that law has offered. How could the UFT lawyers on the negotiating team agree to this provision?

The UFT has not explained to its members these precedents in discipline and rule setting.

Quick responses to hokey arguments for the UFT contract's "protections" for ATRs

Once upon a time there was a rep that promoted the UFT's 2014 contract, and said:

On ATR’s:   Double the protection a regular classroom has.  Yes, now it takes TWO principals documenting problematic behavior to bring someone on 3020a charges.  Yes, they will get a hearing in front of a neutral arbitrator.  Yes,  the DOE will have to prove their case.   Yes, the UFT will provide them with an attorney free of charge.   

Yes, they will now be sent to schools in their district and borough, where there are vacancies in their license area. Yes, the open market transfer period has been extended.  Yes,  they will have the option of taking a severance package if they resign.  Yes, there is NO AUTOMATIC DISMISSAL. 

The UFT said the ATRs would be protected.  They have been protected.  

To which an ATR responded:

I'm sorry you have bought into this.  We will have a ONE day hearing.  That is not protection.  Are you kidding?  What about calling witnesses?  What is unprofessional conduct?  Have you seen a list?  No, no one has?  
This has created a 2nd class of teacher?   Why?  ATRs are not worse teachers, they are not ATRs due to something on their part.  Their school was closed because of Bloomberg.  Why are they being hunted down like dogs?    Being sent to schools in their borough???   Do you know how large Queens is?  And I have no choice if I want to accept a job?  I can't get to schools in Astoria or L.I.C.  There is no parking, but I may have to take the job.  The only jobs left will be the jobs that no one else wants.   
PLEASE DON'T SUGAR COAT THIS CRAP FOR US.  ATRs ARE NOT STUPID. 

This petition to Mulgrew is something that would be good for people to support. It encompasses all excessed staff in all content areas. Shouldn't we be granted a meeting? Staff could have an opportunity to ask a question about their situations or obtain information about the 2014 NYC DOE - UFT contract that they otherwise would not have had.
The union should announce the meeting to every member by their personal email and through the UFT website.

Petition statement to be delivered to Michael Mulgrew, UFT president:

Petition the UFT for a mass meeting to explain the contract's impact on ATRs

We ask you for a mass meeting at UFT headquarters, in the delegate assembly hall, to accommodate all members of the Absent Counselor Reserve (ACRs), the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATRs), other excessed staff or other concerned UFT members, for the purpose of fully airing how the tentative UFT contract will affect excessed staff. 

The ATR part of the contract is a fundamental violation of due process and tenure. We are troubled that there is an expedited discipline and termination process that applies only to ATRs and not to non-excessed teachers. By agreeing to this expedited process you appear to be conceding to the myth that ATRs are all bad teachers instead of educators caught up in school closings and co-locations. 

Principal among our concerns, we wish to have a full enumeration of all actions that would constitute "problematic behavior". 

We are very troubled by your statement, reported in the May 12, 2014 “Wall Street Journal”, that some unnamed panel of hearing officers would solidify the definition of "problematic". How can we be considered as breaking the law if there is no written law or statute? You are trying to get people to agree to a contract whose terms are not yet really defined. 

PETITION BACKGROUND

How can one be considered as breaking the law if there is not yet a written law? Should the fate of teachers' careers rest on undefined legal concepts?

ATRs: Leaflet the delegates @ Wed's DA: Vote No on the UFT contract

ACRs/ATRs, other excesseed UFT members:
Leaflet the special UFT Delegate Assembly (special location) at the NY Hilton in Midtown:
1335 Ave of the Americas (west side of 6th Ave between 53rd St & 54th St, near E, F, M, N, Q, R line stations)
Wednesday, 5/7, 4 to 6 pm
(The MORE Caucus, which is supporting the ATR cause, is leafletting there as well with their leaflet.)

*Click this link for Web access to the print-ready landscape-formatted leaflet:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b2HI9Rs04WdNWrkKtCRea1VRYGJ0XfAXwDSYU-GDI8o/pub
*Version addressed to UFT delegates:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AwfHzIEKyVHY30kJ3IGihWbed6hrMiN_SA1YmtseosY/pub
*UFT's Pay Raise Schedule drawn out to 2020, plus issue of disparate treatment of ATRs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qHdwRJF1hAyQgmbKiSlaw3bzrI41UmwBvh1MrmnbOKc/pub
*Drawn-out raise schedule Illustrated in a graphical form:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKR4GtrQKRf5Qtcn-DKS0TaR5Y0Hygbvw1jtbofAuiD97kDHS0nFS4m00w0Ur8H4KVs2mlvaE-HM-hJJMSTc9Qwxag35ry6e7Djn8yXpSdI6XZAH158UMCHVTTTX1yReu9CbmN5CSTrW2A/s1600/AContract4PuttingOffRetro.gif

Fellow UFT members, ask your delegates,

“DELEGATES, CAN YOU AFFORD TO SUPPORT THIS CONTRACT?”

In the new expedited process an ATR's career can be cut short promptly:

The charge from just two principals that he or she is “unprofessional” (which is not spelled out) will end their tenure, without due process.

–--Can we really trust that principals will not create frivolous trumped up charges?

How safe are you from becoming an ATR?

--Is your license the next to be eliminated?

--Is your school losing enrollment?

--Is your school getting a co-location?

--Do you think your principal likes you –now?

And why are we agreeing with merit pay and with putting 200 schools outside of union protection?

Why does 75% of retro pay does not come until October 2018?

"These [ATRs] are good teachers, mostly from closing schools. But rather than create a win-win situation, the system - despite repeated requests - refused to deal with these issues."              --UFT then president Randi Weingarten, April 10, 2008 – How far have we come from then?

Vote NO on the UFT contract! ATR Chapter Committee atrnyc.blogspot.com

THE DOE'S TEACHER RETENTION PLAN: HOLD OFF 3/4 OF RETRO PAYMENT FOR 4-6 YEARS

Here are the true details about the proposed contract as reported by UFT Leadership on May 1, 2014 to the negotiating committee:

Our Pay Raises

Money

These are the raises that we will get on paper (what the press is reporting):

'09 --4%

'10 --4%

'11 --0% ($1,000 signing

bonus credited to 2011)

'12 --0%

'13 --1%

'14 -1%

'15 -1%

'16 --1.5%

'17 --2.5%

'18 --3%

However, the money that is owed to us from previous years will ONLY arrive beginning in the

year 2015. It will work like this:

• 9/1/14- 2% (which includes the raise due 5/1/13 and 5/1/14 at 1% each):

• 5/1/15 - 3% (2% from our leftover raises in '09-'10 plus the 1% in the contract)

• 5/1/16 - 3.5% (2% from our leftover raises in '09-'10 plus the 1.5% in the contract)

• 5/1/17 - 4.5% (2% from our leftover raises in '09-'10 plus the 2.5% in the contract)

• 5/1/18 - 5% (2% from our leftover raises in '09-'10 plus the 3% in the contract)

• We would receive the $1,000 signing bonus sometime early next Fall

Our Retropay

That comes over 5 years and doesn't begin until 2015. We will receive a percentage of what

we are owed in one payment per year:

• 10/1 2015- 12.5% (lump sum)

• 10/1 2016 - Nothing

• 10/1 2017 - 12.5% lump sum

• 10/1 2018 - 25% lump sum

• 10/1 2019 - 25% lump sum

• 10/1 2020 - 25% lump sum

ATRs

Whoever accepts a position at a school, will go right back into the pool if a principal *says* they acted in an unprofessional manner. If an ATR is sent back into the reserve pool twice, then he/she will be fired in a 50 day time frame via a 3020-a hearing that will last no more than 1 day.