Friday, September 24, 2010

Malloy on binding arbitration

Dan Malloy is trying to shore up his support within the Teachers' Union. Raising Hale's Zachary Janowski reports:

Democratic candidate for governor Dan Malloy made a pitch to 3,000 teachers Wednesday night.... “If you want a governor who understands that binding arbitration is the hallmark of quality education in Connecticut,” Malloy said. “I am not going to change your right to binding arbitration.”

He also mentioned that binding arbitration avoids strikes. I agree that is important. But I also think Cheshire's 4.4% annual raises are too much right now... and somebody needs to address that. There is a middle ground with ideas I've suggested, such as eliminating the "date certain" for completion of contract negotiations... or perhaps allowing teachers to take a smaller raise, but a bigger contribution to their retirement plan... funded by way of avoiding the federal income tax.

Bottom line though is that binding arbitration for teachers should change. No other municipal or state unions have the same beneficial rules that are provided to teachers.

As for Mr. Foley's view on binding arbitration, I'm not sure where he stands.

And with regard to my question about Mssrs. Malloy and Foley supporting the continuation of Mary Fritz' beloved $36,000,000 slush fund, I still haven't heard anything from Dan or from Tom Foley.

Tim White

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 4.4% raise figure remains a myth. Most teachers do not get that. That was the increase in the line item of cost to the town in staff salaries. Layoffs and staff reductions have meant the town has saved money in that line item. Class sizes are bigger. Health insurance contributions have gone up. Course offering are down and kids have more study halls. Yet, scores are going up. And the town still had a surplus.

Anonymous said...

And we have fewer children in the system and no layoffs. Who was telling the truth during the budget process??

Anonymous said...

The blather continues. Does it matter if teacher pay raises were individually exactly 4.4% each or if tax payers were required to fork over an additional 4.4%?

Clearly most of us are more interested in what we must pay as opposed to what John Doe, clone teacher 3rd class actually personally makes.

Why no discussion of the overall shrinking student body? Maybe that discussion is just too frightening for the minions of unionized school system employees. They were raised on the belief that enrollment everywhere in CT and the northeast would just always magically be increasing each and every year for ever. They seem to believe the supply of unemployed teachers would always be low too.

Anonymous said...

i would prefer they do away with binding arb and allow the unions to strike. Then the costs would force the town to negotiate fairly

Anonymous said...

"Does it matter if teacher pay raises were individually exactly 4.4% each or if tax payers were required to fork over an additional 4.4%?"

More misinformation here folks.

The town did NOT and will NOT fork over 4.4% for teacher salaries. You will see the numbers that come out in a few months. Total money spent on teachers will be close to that of 2 years ago with little, if any, increase.

Anonymous said...

This town does not like binding arbitration because it forces them to back up their wants with facts and statistics. BTW, it also forces the teachers to do the same.

If Cheshire could pay what it wanted to in salary and benefits, the teachers of Cheshire would be considered slave labor. Maybe then, they could get some knuckle dragging grunts to do the job and the students could help 'em pick the fields.

Anonymous said...

"The town did NOT and will NOT fork over 4.4% for teacher salaries. You will see the numbers that come out in a few months. Total money spent on teachers will be close to that of 2 years ago with little, if any, increase."

Okay, but we have 300 less students then we did 5 years ago, so shouldn't the amount of money we pay to teachers be less?

We should be paying less.

In the real world, a down economy means to most workers that their pays are frozen or in some cases cut. Not it the public sector. These workers feel they have an entitlement to get increases each year.

Anonymous said...

workers feel they have an entitlement to get increases each year. - can we stop comparing public vs private. They is no parity. Private sector jobs have bonuses, stock options, flex hours, and several other enhancements that can not be offered to public sector employees. public sector employees get steady raises and pensions (although these are being phased out). public employees are not the reason banks have failed, the economy is in a mess, or the fall of the housing market. BUT when the economy is good they are not reaping all the benefits from their employer either.

Anonymous said...

" Private sector jobs have bonuses, stock options, flex hours, and several other enhancements that can not be offered to public sector employees. public sector employees get steady raises and pensions

Said like a true public sector employee...

Please tell me where these jobs are that give bonuses, pensions, flex hours and other enhancements??

We all aren't ceo's of companies. Some of us are hard working people who work 40 to 50 hours a week or more. Many of us have had their pay frozen for 2-3 years while the cost of our health care continues to go up at 15% to 20% per year.
Yet, we are still happy to have jobs.
We aren't guaranteed pay raises each year. We don't have pensions. We have 401K's that we must contribute to.

So you are right, there is no comparison to the public sector and the private sector. It seems like the public gets the better deals.