Teachers Union Moves Step Closer to Approving Contract Deal With City
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The United Federation of Teachers president, Randi Weingarten, likely breathed a sigh of relief yesterday after the union’s delegate assembly voted to approve a tentative deal she negotiated with the city.
About 2,200 delegates representing the union’s rank and file packed into the Brooklyn Marriott in downtown Brooklyn, where, after charged deliberations, an overwhelming majority raised their yellow cards signifying yes votes.
Next door, angry teachers barred from the crowded meeting yelled and heckled as they watched the event on a large-screen television in a meeting room rented by the union and stocked with fruit and beverages. When Ms. Weingarten appeared on screen, they screamed, “Resign!” and “You sold us out!” Things got so rowdy at one point that when a few teachers stood to try to quell the crowd, they were booed back into their seats.
The agreement now goes to all 100,000 members, who will cast a secret ballot. A simple majority is needed for ratification.
The 54-month retroactive contract includes a 15% raise in exchange for several work reforms that have left some teachers displeased. Under the proposal, teachers would resume hallway and bathroom patrol duty, work 10 minutes longer a day, and begin the school year two days earlier.
About 100 teachers protested outside the hotel before the meeting, chanting and carrying placards attacking the union. While some focused their anger on the mayor, others launched into vitriolic attacks on the union leadership.
“If we wanted to be prostituted, we would make better money just going out to 42nd Street,” a disgruntled teacher from I.S.201 in Brooklyn said on her way into the meeting.
A teacher at P.S. 202 in Queens, Joe Giordano, wore a T-shirt he had specially made for the day. It read: “Trust me … I’m a liar.” He said Ms. Weingarten told the delegates at the last meeting to trust her and had let them down.
“She’s putting us back on toilet duty,” he said.
The city’s teachers have been working without a contract for more than two years. The union reached a tentative agreement with the state following a week of intensive negotiations that ended last Monday with an announcement at City Hall.
At that announcement, the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, planted a kiss on Ms. Weingarten’s forehead and declared the day a victory.
Earlier in the day, Mayor Bloomberg said he hoped the contract would be approved.
“I think that this is as good a result as we can have,” he said. “The teachers over the last four years will have gotten a raise of over 33%. I don’t think that when I came into office anybody expected that, given the fiscal situation of this city. It’s a win-win for everybody.”
Yesterday, Ms. Weingarten said that more than 80% of the delegates voted in favor of the contract following “a passionate debate after a very tough negotiation.
“At the same time, don’t get me wrong,” Ms. Weingarten said. “Teachers are understandably angry and demoralized. They have been engaged in a long, contentious struggle.”
She said she would do whatever she could to protect teachers from any of the “managerial abuses that they fear.”
The ballots are slated to go out to teachers by October 24 and be counted by the American Arbitration Association by November 3.
Delegates filing out of yesterday’s meeting were greeted by protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”
“I think it’s silly,” a teacher from P.S. 19K in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said about the small but vocal group of opponents inside the meeting. “I think they just wanted their one moment of fame.