19 thoughts on “3,300 Teachers”

1. Why not have the CEA propose what most private companies did during this downturn? An across the board 5% pay cut for the next 2 years. Higher for people making a lot, less (to none) for those at the low end. But 5% total cut in wages paid.

   Start there and then ask for more money.

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   1. No?

      How surprising.

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      1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12…

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         1. I’m not sure which is more annoying: people who don’t link to articles, or people who link to articles without reading them.

            To be sure, these efforts are far less widespread than layoffs, and outright pay cuts still appear to be rare. Over all, the average hourly pay of rank-and-file workers – who make up about four-fifths of the work force – rose 3.7 percent from November 2007 to last month, according to the latest Labor Department data.

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               1. If average wage is up 3.7% but a higher % are out of work, that means average earnings are down. With teachers facing few of the layoffs private sector folks face, I think a pay freeze or slight cut is on par with the private sector.  Put differently, I think most private sector workers in the past year or so would happily take a pay freeze or slight cut in exchange for an assurance of no layoffs.

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            2. All of these items listed mean reduce pay:
               

               A growing number of employers, hoping to avoid or limit layoffs, are introducing four-day workweeks, unpaid vacations and voluntary or enforced furloughs

               Same here:
               

               The rolls of companies nipping at labor costs with measures less drastic than wholesale layoffs include Dell (extended unpaid holiday), Cisco (four-day year-end shutdown), Motorola (salary cuts), Nevada casinos (four-day workweek), Honda (voluntary unpaid vacation time) and The Seattle Times (plans to save $1 million with a week of unpaid furlough for 500 workers). There are also many midsize and small companies trying such tactics.

               But yes, you’re correct that the reduced pay comes in many forms other than a direct reduction in pay. But in terms of the dollars employees have at the end of the year – it’s a reduction.

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               1. is that a salary cut is permanent, while the other measures you mention (such as furloughs) are explicitly temporary.

                  Make sense?

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                  1. And any cuts should be set with a very soecific end date. So yes, temporary measures only. Hey – we may agree 🙂

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                     1. that it’s better to reduce wages temporarily than to eliminate jobs entirely. We disagree on the practical aspects.

                        And this has nothing at all to do with teaching. Any place in which the workers have some say in how they get paid will face the same issues, and in pretty much all cases they will prefer mandatory vacations or furloughs to salary cuts.

                        The issue is trust. You say you want a strict end date for salary cuts, which is basically a promise from the boss to raise everybody’s wages once things are better. Do the workers trust the boss to actually do this?

                        (Not sure any boss is going to agree to a “specific end date”; after all, nobody knows when the recession is going to end, or when sales will turn around, or when the state will increase funding again, or whatever.)

                        In some workplaces the workers do trust the boss. If the boss takes a big pay cut, that will help. If they know the boss personally, that will help. But it’s not the typical situation.

                        So workers will be suspicious that the boss will say, “Hey, looks like these rubes can totally live on 95% of their old salary, what a great way to cut costs permanently, looks like I deserve a raise!” This is why they’ll prefer, in almost every case, to have something that really can’t be made permanent.

                        This is a general governance issue. If you want to prevent something from happening, you could make it illegal and impose some kind of penalty for a violation. But a more effective way is to make it impossible or extremely difficult in order to deter it. A penalty system is a huge pain to enforce and tends to encourage sneakiness; better to expect that people will try to break the rules and put a bunch of obstacles in their way. (This of course is the basic philosophy of separation of powers in government, but it applies elsewhere.)

                        Sorry this post is so long.

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                        1. Was publicly state what the reduction percentage was for the top executives (greater than anyone else) and that their reduction would not be restored until everyone else’s was. So while the end date was open (we went back to full January 1 this year except for the CEO & mine), everyone knew that they would be treated as well or better than upper management.

                           So yes, it has to be something where the employees are secure that the pay will be returned to full ASAP.

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                           1. but I really think a small company like Windward has the level of trust with the workers you need to get away with that, while most companies or governments don’t. A lot of things that work for your company just can’t work in other situations, where decisions are often made impersonally and there’s a greater degree of antagonism between workers and management.

                              I think you’re sometimes too quick to extrapolate your personal experiences to other organizations, or to society as a whole. Although if you can start extrapolating the beer-and-video-games-on-Fridays to my workplace, I’d appreciate it.

                           2. But I do think it could be done in school districts too. However, there I do think you want to have it written up in a legal agreement because you can’t trust the administration & board to do the right thing. But I think an agreement could be crafted.

                              As to beer & video games – I think High Schools already spend Friday afternoons on that. Sure seems like it from what my daughters have told me 🙂

      2. If not, why?

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2. By what measure do you consider the government schools in CO strong?  These people (with 180 days off a year) have a lot of nerve!

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3. and I know many, work every day of the year, thinking about, shopping for, planning, reading and talking about future ideas for their classrooms. To say they only work on the day they have students in class, shows how little you know about education. It is like saying Congress only works when they are in session, or business execs only work when they are in a meeting.

   I am sick to death of bean-counter business types trashing teachers. Get over yourselves. You have no idea what goes on in schools or you wouldn’t be saying such stupid comments.

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5. .
   
   WaPo says $23 Billion to save 100,000 teacher jobs.
   
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

   I figger that works out to $230,000 per teacher.  

   Remember the NewYorker article on the Rubber Room last year ?  Remember a 2nd Grade teacher quoted as saying she was still paid over $100K per year, though she hadn’t seen a student or a classroom in over 2 years.  

   Are these numbers right ?
   
   .

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