Back in May, I posted about an L.A. Times report about hundreds of union-protected L.A. school teachers who sit at home not to work—and even get paid to do it!
Later in the article the L.A. Times talked of similar situations in other large cities, one of them being New York City.
Well, lo and behold, yesterday AP had a story of the NYC situation. And it’s not pretty.
700 NYC Teachers Paid to Do Nothing
Monday, June 22, 2009
NEW YORK -- Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that’s what they want to do.
Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its “rubber rooms” — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.
The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues _ pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year. […]
Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.
“It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract,” spokeswoman Ann Forte said.
City officials said that they make teachers report to a rubber room instead of sending they home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work. […]
Indeed, in this article the L.A. public school system is mentioned:
Some other school systems likewise pay teachers to do nothing.
The Los Angeles district, the nation’s second-largest school system with 620,000 students, behind New York’s 1.1 million, said it has 178 teachers and other staff members who are being “housed” while they wait for misconduct charges to be resolved. […]
New York City’s reassignment centers have existed since the late 1990s, Forte said. But the number of employees assigned to them has ballooned since Bloomberg won more control over the schools in 2002. Most of those sent to rubber rooms are teachers; others are assistant principals, social workers, psychologists and secretaries.
Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six. […]
David Suker, who has been in a Brooklyn reassignment center for three months, said he has used the time to plan summer trips to Alaska, Cape Cod and Costa Rica. Suker said he was falsely accused of throwing a girl’s test sign-up form in the garbage during an argument.
“It’s sort of peaceful knowing that you’re going to work to do nothing,” he said.
Philip Nobile is a journalist who has written for New York Magazine and the Village Voice and is known for his scathing criticism of public figures. A teacher at Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill School of American Studies, Nobile was assigned to a rubber room in 2007, “supposedly for pushing a boy while I was breaking up a fight.” He contends the school system is retaliating against him for exposing wrongdoing.
He is spending his time working on his case and writing magazine articles and a novel.
“This is what happens to political prisoners throughout history,” he said, alluding to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “They put us in prison and we write our `Letter From the Birmingham Jail.’“
Awww, isn’t that nice. A union-protected teacher enjoys how peaceful—not shameful or humiliating, peaceful—it is to go to work and get paid to do nothing.
And another one who gets paid to sit on his ass at home writing magazine articles and novels is comparing his “plight” to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spoken like true liberals/Democrats. Oh, how do I know these are liberals/Democrats? Trust me, I just know.
‘Cause contrary to the sentiment of disgraced DNC Chair Howard Dean, according to whom Republicans don’t work an honest day in their lives, the hundreds of hundreds of union-protected public school teachers—whom I would bet my hard-earned money are mostly Democrats—tell a much different story.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air quips:
When an employee performs poorly in the workplace, normally employers let them go and find better replacements, or sometimes just reduce headcount and save costs to keep prices low. When a union gets involved, and especially when the employer is the government, the dynamic changes — dramatically.
Wait a sec, Aren’t the unions among Barack Obama’s biggest supporters? Why, yes they are.
And didn’t Obama put the fix in real good on their behalf when he took over … um … what’s that car company’s name? Why, yes he did.
Remember, this is what the Left calls progressive Without the progress.
End the occupation! Liberals out of the schools NOW!
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