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Thursday, May 31, 2012
Citizens for Public Schools
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
From Barbara Gordon posted Saturday on Facebook:
This week the Massachusetts Teachers Association's Board of Directors voted to put forward legislation that will end the use of tenure and seniority as the primary factors to use in layoff situations. Instead, the primary criteria will be performance evaluations and "the best interests of the students" with seniority being used only for "tie-breakers." This was a "legislative compromise" the MTA leadership worked out with educational terrorists Stand for Children, who had a ballot question that did the same thing and more, ready for the November election. The MTA leadership negotiated this compromise without input or approval from rank and file MTA members. Their position is that there is no way we could have beaten Stand on the ballot question so it was better to compromise and lose seniority rights and involuntary transfer rights than to fight and possibly lose those things and more. People are shocked and furious. Does anyone have any ideas for anything we can do about this? They are pushing to get this into the legislature and passed by July 3, the deadline when Stand for Children has to submit the final paperwork for the ballot question. We know we might lose the ballot question, but we wanted a chance to fight. If the MTA leadership will not fight for us, where are we? What are we paying our dues for?
MTA & STAND FOR CHILDREN: As we know, collective bargaining entails negotiating with our employer over our compensation, hours of work and working conditions (broadly). Under these rules, we often need to organize ourselves to take action to ensure that we strengthen our contracts, while not giving away past gains. The current MTA leadership has now decided to take us in a new and very different direction and bargain (secretly in the beginning) with Stand for Children - a private anti-union, corporate front group - not only over contractual issues, but fundamental union rights. Instead of organizing members and allies to fight this aggressive assault by a group notoriously hostile to teachers unions, Toner and company chose to take a pathetic and defeatist stance to enter into "negotiations" with Stand, knowing that teachers rights and the the union's integrity will be significantly damaged.
There is no future for teachers, children, or parents in having Gates and Broad control the voices of teachers by buying off phony leaders like Paul Toner. If the teaching profession is to be saved for now and the future, teachers must take back their unions and reclaim the mission that made them a movement of solidarity among teachers, parents, and students. There is no other choice, and there is no greater calling.
Last year Paul Toner, the ostensible leader of the MA Teachers Association, surrendered his membership by capitulating without a whimper to the first step in the corporate blueprint to replace tenured and experienced teachers with a new generation of untrained neophytes who will cycle through the system after a two to three year stint.
Can we vote for impeachment proceedings against Toner? He clearly doesn't represent the teachers, union or otherwise... just making his political connections for his future after MTA. Remember term limits? and he's not going back to the classroom, nor ready to retire!
@ Barbara... This is what the "MTA" did to us with the lifetime certifications. We would have liked to have our day in court, but they denied us our rights. Can we go to the labor board? Or should we vote no confidence in Toner and the rest of the MTA governing body? Something to look into...
8 comments:
From Barbara Gordon posted Saturday on Facebook:
This week the Massachusetts Teachers Association's Board of Directors voted to put forward legislation that will end the use of tenure and seniority as the primary factors to use in layoff situations. Instead, the primary criteria will be performance evaluations and "the best interests of the students" with seniority being used only for "tie-breakers."
This was a "legislative compromise" the MTA leadership worked out with educational terrorists Stand for Children, who had a ballot question that did the same thing and more, ready for the November election. The MTA leadership negotiated this compromise without input or approval from rank and file MTA members. Their position is that there is no way we could have beaten Stand on the ballot question so it was better to compromise and lose seniority rights and involuntary transfer rights than to fight and possibly lose those things and more.
People are shocked and furious. Does anyone have any ideas for anything we can do about this? They are pushing to get this into the legislature and passed by July 3, the deadline when Stand for Children has to submit the final paperwork for the ballot question.
We know we might lose the ballot question, but we wanted a chance to fight. If the MTA leadership will not fight for us, where are we? What are we paying our dues for?
MTA & STAND FOR CHILDREN: As we know, collective bargaining entails negotiating with our employer over our compensation, hours of work and working conditions (broadly). Under these rules, we often need to organize ourselves to take action to ensure that we strengthen our contracts, while not giving away past gains.
The current MTA leadership has now decided to take us in a new and very different direction and bargain (secretly in the beginning) with Stand for Children - a private anti-union, corporate front group - not only over contractual issues, but fundamental union rights. Instead of organizing members and allies to fight this aggressive assault by a group notoriously hostile to teachers unions, Toner and company chose to take a pathetic and defeatist stance to enter into "negotiations" with Stand, knowing that teachers rights and the the union's integrity will be significantly damaged.
There is no future for teachers, children, or parents in having Gates and Broad control the voices of teachers by buying off phony leaders like Paul Toner. If the teaching profession is to be saved for now and the future, teachers must take back their unions and reclaim the mission that made them a movement of solidarity among teachers, parents, and students. There is no other choice, and there is no greater calling.
Last year Paul Toner, the ostensible leader of the MA Teachers Association, surrendered his membership by capitulating without a whimper to the first step in the corporate blueprint to replace tenured and experienced teachers with a new generation of untrained neophytes who will cycle through the system after a two to three year stint.
Can we vote for impeachment proceedings against Toner? He clearly doesn't represent the teachers, union or otherwise... just making his political connections for his future after MTA. Remember term limits? and he's not going back to the classroom, nor ready to retire!
IMPEACH TONER! TRAITOR TO ALL TEACHERS!
@ Barbara... This is what the "MTA" did to us with the lifetime certifications. We would have liked to have our day in court, but they denied us our rights. Can we go to the labor board? Or should we vote no confidence in Toner and the rest of the MTA governing body? Something to look into...
This was coming down the pipe long before Stand for Children.
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