An Opportunity for Empathy

There's a lesson in empathy available in this:

And several thousand other state workers are caught in the middle of a war between leaders of the largest employees union, Council 94, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that has put that union's executive director — and lead negotiator — Dennis Grilli on the defensive about his own raise and the $10,044 "waiver payment" he got for taking his wife's state-provided health insurance, instead of a union package.

Stunned that after 30 years in the union trenches he has become one of the targets of the angry debate, Grilli this week said he would give up the 3 percent raise awarded him by his union's leadership board last spring that boosted his salary to $102,900 a year.

A five digit windfall for not taking a benefit. So whose turn is it to make the argument that employees who save their employers money by not taking benefits ought to reap some of the rewards?

Perhaps one can hope that reality is beginning to sink in, for Rhode Island's public-sector unions. The days of squandering the state's economic health may by necessity (and by necessity only) be coming to an end. It's interesting to note, by the by, that one apparent hold-out is an affiliate under Bob Walsh's shadow.

Now That's an Entitlementality

In the midst of a story about Rhode Island government's hard financial times, one finds the following nugget:

... local officials say they need more.

They want state legislators to change the pension rules for municipal employees, requiring them to work longer before they can retire.

They are also pushing for the repeal of a state law that allows third-party arbitrators to impose sometimes costly police and fire contracts on municipalities after union talks break down.

Those proposals face opposition from the state's powerful labor lobby.

Tony Capezza, Rhode Island state director of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said the binding arbitration law is only fair, since police officers and firefighters do not have the right to strike.

"If you don't have binding arbitration, you would have to have the right to strike," he said. "Lincoln freed the slaves years ago."

Yeah. Working at will an environment in which employers have the final say in running their organizations and employees with jobs critical to public safety can't put those jobs on hold, en masse, as a negotiating tactic is just like being owned as chattel.

Spinning the Union

Paul Bovenzi's response to an excellent op-ed by Bill Wilson raises an interesting question. On the one hand:

Also, there are jobs (teaching and otherwise) that are not Union. People have a choice. They can work for a private school if they are completely opposed to being in a Union. Maybe the reason they don't is because Union workers are treated more fairly and compensated better than non-union employees. As I have said before on this blog, the Union members I know are all happy and grateful to be part of a Union.

And yet, union membership is on the decline. Of course, as we know, that decline is mainly in the private sector, so one must wonder why an arena more subject to market forces is more likely to lose members.

Perhaps those "happy and grateful" union employees in the private sector are finding that the perks aren't worth driving their employers out of business, or forcing their jobs overseas. The public sector may have thought itself immune to this dynamic, but at least here in Rhode Island, I've a feeling that they're soon to learn otherwise.

Burning Out the House

As one who flirts often with the edge of burnout, I hear the hum of truth in this:

Burnout has been long associated with being overworked and underpaid, but psychologists Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter found that these were not the crucial factors. The single biggest difference between employees who suffered burnout and those who did not was the whether they thought that they were being treated unfairly or fairly. ...

Their research on fairness dovetails with work by other researchers showing that humans care a great deal about how they are being treated relative to others. In many ways, fairness seems to matter more than absolute measures of how well they are faring -- people seem willing to endure tough times if they have the sense the burden is being shared equally, but they quickly become resentful if they feel they are being singled out for poor treatment.

Without doubt, the lesson applies in the civic arena, as well.

Letting the Unions Win the Lottery

I have to admit that NEA head Bob Walsh's proposal to give the public sector pension system "equity" from the state lottery instead of this year's cash contribution confused me. Most prominently, I don't see how a government that habitually spends hundreds of millions of dollars over its revenue can be presumed to need a one-year fix, even if the economy were to right itself within the three to four years that Walsh predicts. Second most prominently, Bob doesn't explain why the pensioners would want an asset yielding cash returns this year at a fraction of the cash that they were expecting.

Anchor Rising readers have the advantage that one of Walsh's numbers should look familiar: The 8.25% that he puts forward as his "conservative expected return" is precisely the figure that inspired so much discussion 'round here. The key to his whole scheme, in other words, is to determine the percentage of the lottery that would be given to the pension system in lieu of this year's $243 million payment by calculating backwards from the "expected" return that the pension system requires in order to be solvent.

If the state were to put $243 million into the account, that money would have to generate a $20 million return (in a slow economy) for the pension scheme to work, so Walsh is requesting $20 million from next year's lottery revenue and calling that 8.25% of the pensions "equity." One could pick just about any number, suggesting, for example, that the projected $365 million in total lottery revenue really represents only a 3% of a total value (we're assuming) of $12 billion, making the pension's $243 million just 2% equity, with a projected return of $4 million, instead of $20 million.

But we could run this formula all evening. The salient question is, accepting Walsh's proposal, what happens next year. The state could resume cash payments, or it could give the pension system another chunk of lottery equity. Me, I'd wager that Walsh would, at that time, recalculate the value of the lottery such that his union members still receive their 8.25% return (plus, of course, the percentage already covered by this year's revenue). The one certainty is that the revenue coming into the state would diminish each year this method is used.

Another certainty is that those who control the pension system would be able to divest themselves of this lottery equity, should things turn around such that other investments would yield better returns. Again, I'd wager that the unions would turn to the state to buy back the equity at more than its value.

It's a clever ploy, buried beneath the confusion of Walsh's "sound financial principles," and treating it all as if it were found money. The money is not "hidden" in the system, though. It's our money, and it's under the control of our representatives, both of which make it as a shiny thing to Walsh's searching eye.

New Tone, Hidden Strategies

An interesting passage from Steve Peoples's second part to the Projo's series on local unions:

LABOR UNIONS and their allies walk a fine line when it comes to influencing elections. State and federal campaign finance laws have strict limits on what is, and isn't, permissible.

That may be why Ocean State Action is actually made up of three distinct organizations — the Ocean State Action Fund, Ocean State Action and the Progressive Leadership Fund — although their boards have common members and the organizations have the same staff. ...

Federal law does not limit labor's ability to communicate with its own members.

Labor has detailed lists of the names, addresses and contact information for the estimated 75,000 union members in Rhode Island. Union canvassers can visit the households as many times as they want, send unlimited mailing or make unlimited phone calls.

It isn't my purpose, here, to spark a discussion of any of the laws involved in making this dizzying accountant's dream legal. Rather, I'm curious how folks believe this comprehensive lobbying strategy fits in with some related positions in the economic platform put forward by Mr. Barack "New Tone, Stop the Special Interests" Obama, such as fighting to ensure the "freedom to unionize" and working "to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods." There's also some overlap in his vision of "comprehensive energy independence and climate change plan" and, say, the Green Jobs Alliance.

There's an ecologically sound bridge that Mr. Obama would like to sell (via tax dollars) to those who actually believe that he is a creature of compromise heretofore unseen in Washington.

Thomas C. Wigand: Bob Walsh's Risky Scheme

According to the Providence Journal, Bob Walsh of NEARI has been prowling the halls of the General Assembly peddling a "plan" to solve this year's budget deficit. His protégé Pat Crowley has posted a version of it on the left-leaning RI Future blog. Though his proposal is coated in sugary language, should the General Assembly swallow it, it will indeed be a bitter pill for Rhode Island ... perhaps even economically fatal.

We all remember the "tobacco money." What Walsh proposes resembles that, in that he wants to divest the State of a future revenue stream in return for some quick cash, but his version is far worse, and will cause irreparable damage to Rhode Island.

The tobacco money is essentially "found money," indeed a windfall, and is going to be paid out for decades to come. But Rhode Island isn't going to get a penny. Why? Because the General Assembly went to Wall Street and sold Rhode Island's future income stream at a discount in return for some quick cash. Essentially this was a humungous, public sector "payday loan." So the tobacco money — "the profit" — is now all going to Wall Street investors. As we also know, within a few short years the General Assembly peed away that cash infusion. As shortsighted and irresponsible as that transaction was, it at least infused some new cash into Rhode Island's coffers. Walsh's scheme doesn't even do that — quite the opposite.

Euphemistically using the term "contribute equity" as a proxy for "transferring ownership," Walsh portrays his game as, in essence, placing a fallow state asset into productive use. In reality, what he is proposing is the piecemeal transfer of ownership of the Lottery to the state's pension system (and so, by extension, to the unions). He claims that this will only be a temporary measure, "contributing" only small percentages of "equity" (i.e., ownership) to the state pension system for a few years. If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you (and I'm not talking the Pell Bridge). Exhibit 1: the tobacco money. Once the precedent is set, this "camel's nose" will continue sliding under our fiscal tent until the pension system (and thus the unions) own a major portion of the Lottery, if not all of it.

While these "equity contributions" are being presented as a temporary measure to get us through the "budget crisis" until the economy recovers, the transfer is permanent — the pension system (and thus the unions) will be getting those Lottery revenues forever. The tobacco money now being paid to the Wall Street investors has an eventual end date, while under Walsh's scheme to direct revenues to the pension/unions continues in perpetuity — a clever gambit on Mr. Walsh's part, eh?

Each percentage of "equity contributed" to the pension system means that an equal percentage of Lottery revenue will now go into the pension system, meaning that taxpayers will have to make up the shortfall in the general budget. Given that Lottery revenues constitute something like a third of total State revenues, this could eventually mean a 30% tax hike foisted upon the taxpayers of Rhode Island - merely to maintain the status quo in the state pension system. In other words, Walsh's scheme is a backdoor way of enacting a huge tax increase to force taxpayers to fund a bailout the State pension system.

Mr. Walsh is executive director of NEARI, and his job is to forcefully represent the narrow special interests of that organization (and, to the detriment of taxpayers and public-school students, he seems to perform his duties quite ably). So in promoting this scheme, "he's just doing his job." But ultimately it is unreasonable, indeed unconscionable, for public-sector employees to demand that taxpayers incur massive additional taxes just to maintain the status quo of the pension system, the benefits of which exceed by orders of magnitude the retirement benefits available to taxpayers (the vast majority of whom will get no pension whatsoever).

One would assume that Governor Carcieri will likewise "do his job," representing all of the people Rhode Island, and refuse to be party to such a scheme. It is likewise time for the General Assembly to begin "doing its job," representing the best interests of all the citizens of Rhode Island, not just placating narrow special interests.

We are at a watershed time in Rhode Island. In recent decades the General Assembly has become addicted to a tax-and-spend and pander lifestyle, a habit maintained in recent years through "fixes" such as the tobacco money. The consequences become ever clearer: a state economy whose performance lags both its neighbors and national averages, to the detriment of each and every citizen ... a downward spiral that will continue unless major structural changes occur to state government and the pay and benefit packages of all public sector employees.

The General Assembly has a decision to make. Either it can start "rehab" and set Rhode Island on a path for fiscal and economic rehabilitation ... or it can accept the new even more destructive "high" being pushed by dealer Bob Walsh.

Will the cessation of tobacco money signal the start of rehab, or will it prove that the tobacco money was just a "gateway drug" for even more destructive fiscal behavior on the part of the General Assembly? We shall soon see. The economic fate of Rhode Island hangs in the balance.

Thank You, Erin Blackman!

Much of the criticism (and all of the hatemail) related to my op-ed regarding Lt. Michael Morse and unionization in RI has only served to exacerbate my reservations. Namely, when I say "unionization," they hear "firefighters." When I say, "I've concluded that public-sector unionization is among the villains in Rhode Island," they hear, "you get paid too much."

The bottom line is that, every time I've made a complaint about public-sector unions, even if my target is, say, the National Education Association, the firefighters step forward as poster children for the union cause. Consider the picture associated with Charles Bakst's latest column. Or better yet, consider the comment section to this post in which Michael links to my op-ed:

The worry I have is, don't they feel all you out there that provide this valuable service are deserving of every penny you earn? It angers me when people begin to look at the rescuers and search for ways to help the community money pot by asking the rescuers to sacrifice for the common good, because sacrifice they do already (you do).

The problem is that, as long as there's a unified union front, it's impossible to assess firefighters distinctly from the rest. As long as public safety officers stand shoulder to shoulder with social workers under the union banner, they force reformists to battle them in order to battle the unions.

And into this wrangle, in which the sides have worn veritable trenches beneath their feet as they've stood their immovable ground, comes Erin Blackman, who is currently working on a documentary about the Providence Fire Department, writing to the above-linked post on Michael's blog:

... unions would not be an issue if the friggin' cities and the state would quit paying ridiculous salaries to file clerks, data entry clerks and janitors and start paying firefighters, cops and correctional officers for keeping us safe every day.

You'll note that one rarely hears the office-chair jockeys in the public sector stepping forward to defend the necessity of union practices. Indeed, it seems increasingly that, as public school teachers tumble through the boundaries of reasonable action that they've been pushing for years, the emergency workers are slipping toward the spotlight to be the Face of the Union.

Yeah, it gets our hackles up when union business begins to overlap with the business of protecting citizens. But it would serve both the public and the emergency workers for such actions to be seen as distinguishable from the rest of the rotten mess in this state.

The Enemy's Org Chart

Today's Providence Journal article on organized labor in the state is must-reading. This passage is particularly telling:

But organized labor also has a strong voice in discussions about over health-care cuts for the poor, reduced benefits for foster children, environmental causes like such as recycling, and even gay marriage.

Rhode Island unions have formed unique partnerships with a host of seemingly unrelated environmental and social advocacy groups. Through this, relatively weak organizations gain a stronger voice in state affairs. And In exchange, labor unions strengthen political alliances, expand their bank of volunteers that help elect pro-labor candidates, and improve their image.

Anybody find it curious that all of labor leaders' efforts to "improve their image" (their excuse to members for their unrelated activities, no doubt) have a leftward tilt?

ADDENDUM:

I think the heat is embellishing my need for a vacation (or maybe just a full night's sleep). I'd misread the table on which I commented earlier, so I've deleted the chart. There's still a more subtle point to make, but it'll have to wait on a bit of yard work.

Exhibit #473 for the Prosecution's Case That the NEA Has Less to Do with Education than Left-Wing Politics

Yes, that's an organization composed mainly of teachers offering up unimaginative slogans that promote left-wing clichés:

Across the Union Divide

My piece in today's Providence Journal dwells on the collision of my affection and admiration for Providence Firefighter/EMT Lt. Michael Morse and his book and my opposition to public-sector unions.

The Injury Lottery

The Projo headline should have been "Murder case could threaten ex-officers' pensions," because it shouldn't take the manifest ability of killing another human being to correct this clear fleecing of the public:

Gianquitti has been collecting an accidental disability pension since 1993, retiring at 24 after six months as a patrolman for the Providence Police Department. His disability pension is two-thirds his salary, tax-free, plus health care benefits for him and his family. ...

While Gianquitti’s pension received cost-of-living adjustments, the city never checked on him to find out if he was, indeed, still disabled, Cunha said.

The hand-wringing over whether the pension requirement of "honorable service" applies to crimes committed after retirement is sickening: Anybody still living on the municipality's deal for police officers ought to be held to the same standard. And taking advantage of an early injury for a lifelong vacation ought to be considered dishonorable on its face.

Promises Bought and Futures Sold

Julia Steiny is must-reading today:

After collecting my thoughts and temper, I wrote back. It seemed to me that teaching a child to read was the principal mission of any school and was, therefore, funded. Rhode Island has one of the highest per-pupil expenditures in the nation. If not to teach reading, what is it going to the schools for? The Regents were only trying to get children actual help, instead of letting them be subjected to Jurassic practices like being put in the dumb-kids' reading group or passed on for the next teacher to deal with. That help seemed well funded already, at least to me. ...

Too many people in Rhode Island are in the habit of thinking that the schools have the right to do whatever it is they're already doing, effective or not, and expect that anything better has to be paid for as an extra. When research and experience in other states identify an educational best practice — for example, tailoring strategies to each struggling reader — our state's taxpayers have to pay extra to implement it.

The problem is that reform-minded diktats from the state never touch on the core problem, which Steiny rightly identifies as unlimited collective bargaining rights, leading to such outcomes as this:

... the existing resources continue to shift away from kids to support benefits for adults. The Educational Intelligence Agency, a national watchdog, reports that Rhode Island's public school population has dropped 4.6 percent since 2000-'01, while compensation to teachers went up 37 percent. Nationally, the average state enrollment has increased 2.5 percent since 2000-'01 while compensation went up 24.5 percent.

Frankly, I have a negative emotional reaction to unfunded mandates: If the educational bureaucracy of the state — with which the unions have made it their business to exert influence — wishes to send down requirements, then it seems only fair that the money to support them oughtn't be derived from sources with which they are not connected (i.e., local and property taxes). But perhaps a case-by-case assessment is necessary. Really, how much funding is needed for the development of reading plans for individual students? That sounds like something that schools and teachers ought to do as a matter of course.

It may be that the very quality of unfunded mandates to which I have an adverse reaction speaks in their favor. They put pressure on an artificially constrained system, and the central and most costly constraint is the unionization of the teachers. In a system in which every new task or idea requires additional money, stuffing more of them into the bag will increase the awareness of those who ultimately have to carry it — taxpayers — and eventually enough of them will come to realize that our public servants have become our masters, foisting what ought to be their responsibilities onto our shoulders.

If we want to see this detrimental pressure removed from our educational system, we need take only one step: end the unionization of public school teachers. Taking that step, we could just watch how quickly the system would learn to right itself.

More Unionist than Professional

West Warwick teacher Paul Bovenzi appears to have attended a few too many union prep and pump sessions:

Teachers drive education, and know what's best for children in their schools. Contrary to popular belief, administrators (or managers to use his misnomer) are no more educators than a hospital administrator is a doctor! Do you want a hospital administrator making medical decisions that affect your health?

Mr. Achorn wants to give these "managers" more power. I think they should get less. Administrators should do budgets, scheduling and handle disciplinary issues. Beyond that, we should let the educators take care of teaching children.

Mr. Achorn wants to give managers more evaluation power. I call for educators to push for a peer-evaluation system, much as the Rhode Island Bar Association evaluates its lawyers, Internal Affairs its police, or the American Medical Association doctors. Administrators have no business evaluating educators. The professionals in the field should evaluate and "police" themselves.

Besides, not to put too fine a point on it, but there is a dearth of any administrators out there, specifically good ones. Most administrators I have worked for can't handle the responsibilities that they have now and could never handle more, especially a more rigorous evaluation system. Who exactly are these managers who are going to turn things around in the public schools all by themselves? I am not saying there are not good people doing these jobs, but there are no super-administrators with all the answers. If they are out there, I haven't met them yet.

See, the problem with the union mentality is that the ostensible "professionals" lose credibility for their claims that they "know what's best for children in their schools" and "should evaluate and 'police' themselves." After some years of experience with strikes and "working to rule," the objective taxpayer and parent is apt to wonder how that's "best for the children," and to wonder what real consequences will be imposed in the course of self monitoring.

No, I don't want a hospital administrator making my medical decisions, but neither would I want doctors to be given too much rein to fashion the hospital with their own benefit centrally in mind. Indeed, were that to happen, I would go to all lengths to make sure that I received my medical services elsewhere.

And there's the rub. Doctors and lawyers have to perform. They may have routes toward accreditation and consequences administered through professional organizations, but they still have to convince clients that their services are worth employing. Moreover, through their control over "budgets, scheduling and... disciplinary issues," administrators exert influence over them, and over their organizations in whole.

As many of us have been saying for years: if teachers want to be respected as professionals, they have to begin playing that part, rather than the industrial unionist role that they've allowed to define them in Rhode Island.

Yes, You Bear Some Responsibility

In the obviously titled "State workers protest any pension cuts," one protester said the following:

Others, including social worker Michael Fallon, said they felt state workers had been unfairly made the "scapegoats" for both the ballooning unfunded liability in the state pension fund and the "poor management" that landed Rhode Island in its current fiscal mess.

Being the member of a union does not mean one's hands are clean of the stains that the union's behavior leaves — quite the opposite — and union behavior has been a key component in our state's management. If members have voted for specific candidates under union advisement, if they have stood by while their lobbyists worked back-room deals, if they have said nothing as their dues bought ads on progressive Web sites and financed the campaigns of the legislators who have done such grave harm to our state, then they are not mere "scapegoats," but active parts of the problem.

The first step to fixing that problem will be for them to realize that one-issue voting (the issue being "my employment deal") is self-defeating because so calamitous in its result.

Changing the scope of what is subject to union contract bargaining for RI public employees

On the Tuesday evening Matt Allen WPRO show, Matt interviewed State Representative and House Minority Whip Nick Gorham about Gorham's bill H-7664, which would redefine the scope of issues subject to bargaining for RI public employees.

During the interview, Gorham noted that there are very different approaches across the 50 states as to what issues are subject to bargaining by public employees. At one end of the spectrum, some states do not permit any such bargaining for certain public employees. Unsurprisingly, RI is at the other end of spectrum, where current law says the following is subject to bargaining for all public employees: wages, benefits and all other terms and conditions of employment.

Gorham notes that current RI law disenfranchises management, such as school superintendents and principals, and creates the structural incentive which results in the state spending significant financial resources while getting only meager results on its investment. As I have written for years about the teachers' union contracts, RI overpays for under-performance and has created an entitlement mentality instead of a focus on performance.

Gorham's bill would limit the scope of what is subject to bargaining to only wages and benefits, applying such a scope definition to fire fighters, police officers, state police officers, correctional officers, certified teachers, municipal employees and 911 employees. The bill would place RI in the middle of how the 50 states approach public employee bargaining. And, by default, leave the remaining issues of how they get their respective jobs done to the people who actually do the work - instead of union officials.

Ed Achorn had this broad observation about the current conditions in RI and how this entitlement mentality has gotten the state into a very deep hole:

...Thanks in part to unsustainable benefits for public-employee unions, the state confronts a budget deficit of a half-billion dollars or more. And it cannot effectively tax its way out of the nightmare, since its radically high taxes (including property taxes) have already driven out jobs, businesses and many middle-class taxpayers, cutting revenues and leaving Rhode Island one of the few states in recession, while Massachusetts right next door adds jobs and boosts its tax revenues.

Rhode Island, with its beauty, superb location, intellectual infrastructure and potential for port activity, should be one of America’s booming places. Instead, its politicians have left its citizens living in fear that they will lose their jobs or be forced to pack up and leave.

The kind of thinking that brought about this economic debacle also prevails in public education. Thanks to state labor laws that tilt the playing field against taxpayers, and local officials who consistently give away the store in contract negotiations (either deliberately or because they lack the intensity and experience of their well-funded foes), the Ocean State pays one of America’s highest tabs per pupil for public schools, and gets generally mediocre results. And when even more money is invested in the schools, it seems to go into the pockets of special interests in the form of unsustainable benefits, rather than getting to students in the form of new books, science labs, sports, art, music and first-rate teaching.

It doesn’t have to be this way, Mr. Gorham argues...

Indeed, it does not.

Banking on a System Sure to Fail

Andrew makes a central observation in the comments to his latest post on the pension deficit:

If politicians making bad fiscal decisions are the entire story of the pension funding crisis, that is a strong case against defined benefit plans, because there is no reason to believe that current and future pols are going to be any smarter than the ones who got us in to this mess.

For his part, NEA honcho Bob Walsh offers a worthy summary thereof:

... since you asked, here is a brief recap. While pensions systems started in the public sector to match the private sector models, they generally had a few major differences - public sector plans usually required employee contributions as well as employer contributions, and, while private sector plans eventually fell under ERISA regulations, such rules were lacking for public plans. Eventually, though, most public plans tried to follow private guidelines, but since governments were (correctly) considered on-going entities, getting to full funding was never a high priority and the typical 30-year amortization schedules were constantly being redrawn (there are still folks who argue they should be reamortized every year to keep management contribution levels down). RI last reset the counter 8 years ago, so we will be fully funded in 22 years IF we stick to the plan.

RI, of course, added to the problem in its own unique way - they were later to the game in requiring real actuarial studies to set the management contributions, and imagine their surprise when the funding levels were discovered to be so low. During the DiPrete years, the two early retirements saved the state money from the personnel budget by essentially giving away time in the pension system, which not only essentially transfered those costs to the pension system, it was the equivalent of borrowing the money at 8.25% (more, really, since the real returns have always been higher). DiPrete also gave us the banking crisis, which caused the state to decide not to make required contributions during that time. In the late 1990's, when funds all over the country were catching up due to stellar market returns, we decided to ignore the 5-year smoothing used to average out market returns and "mark to market" our portfolio, which lowered management contributions at the time and , all too predictably, caused them to increase years later.

Demographics have also played a part - while I disagreed with some of the Plan B changes, the concept of retirement at any age without any age-based actuarial reduction was not sustainable (as I testified at the time.) Of course, folks are living longer, etc., which also caused the need for those adjustments.

The missing piece is that — for professional and ideological reasons — he and his union-leader peers have backed the very politicians and policies that have brought Rhode Island to its current state. Giveaways, regulations, and micromanaged obfuscations of the free market — for the most part benefiting unions directly or indirectly — created the circumstances in which public-sector pensions are threatened as they are, and one suspects that those in the know, such as Mr. Walsh, have not raised the alarum because they've considered the pension benefits to be "guaranteed," if not legally, then morally. As Michael commented to a previous post in the series:

... the pension is part of a benefit package. The benefit package was offered to me when I accepted employment with the City of Providence. I didn't demand it or crunch the numbers or do an audit, I trusted the integrity of the people who hired me to have figured this thing out before offering the package. I've planned my future based on the numbers supplied to me and doing some investing and career building on my own. The only demanding I'm hearing is people who's future's are not tied to the pension systems demanding I sacrifice my future so they can save a few bucks on their tax bills.

Well, I'll agree that it was improper for politicians (and unions) to make unrealistic promises on which others would be expected to deliver, but Michael's undue dismissal of taxpayers' claims is telling. Sure, if everybody in Rhode Island threw me a dime (nevermind "a few bucks"), I could end my crushing debt, but I'd prefer policies that created an economy in which a hard-worker could thrive. I planned my educational investments based on indicators and advice, expecting those who'd constructed our social schema to have structured the market as promised. Life doesn't always work out as expected.

The thread running between Bob and Michael is the belief that the responsibility for fixing the pension system rests with those whose ostensible representatives enunciated the promises. And that points to a structure (deliberate, no doubt) in which those who bear the risks receive none of the rewards, while those who receive the rewards have no risks (in the sense of losing their pensions). From where, then, would those whose futures are actually in question — as Michael claims his is — derive incentive to keep an eye on the stewards of their retirements? To ensure that "too good" doesn't get swamped in "to be true"?

Tom W offers the important reminder that being entitled to vested benefits also means that benefits that aren't yet vested aren't an entitlement. It's the public sector workers' pension system that is at stake, and it seems to me that they ought to bear the brunt of the financial hit of having to return it to solvency. If the financial hit is too large, perhaps they'll decide to mitigate in small degree by canceling their union dues.

Ending Bumping

Perhaps no practice is a better distillation of the blight that is teacher unionization than bumping. I'm with Julia Steiny in thinking that it ought to end, but the suggestions of the Business Education Partnership that she describes in her column, yesterday, are worth considering as half-way measures:

To professionalize education personnel practices, Blais and her colleagues put the focus squarely on evaluation. Rhode Island is one of only a handful of states that do not mandate that teachers be evaluated. In fact, most Rhode Island teachers are never evaluated in any meaningful or helpful way.

Blais says the key to an effective and fair evaluation system is to use several different measures, instead of just one principal's say-so. Evaluations should include objective, quantifiable information, such as student achievement, as well as administrator and peer observations. The resulting evaluations should place teachers at one of four levels: master, pre-master, basic and below basic.

With these categories in hand, teachers would no longer be interchangeable. Any teacher with two consecutive below-basic evaluations could be let go. (At last!) No basic teacher could bump a master, no matter how long he or she has been in the system. Only master teachers should be peer evaluators.

It is an abomination that, in a profession that begs for inspiration, we permit no measure of quality.

Doing a Job on the State

James Cournoyer, of North Smithfield, gets to the heart of the matter (after noting that public employees are paid workers, not volunteers):

... a public employee who starts working at age 25 with a $30,000 salary and annual raises of 3.25 percent will contribute $74,425 to the pension system over 20 years, assuming a contribution of 9 percent of his annual salary. Then, at the tender age of 45, that employee can begin collecting a pension equal to 50 percent of his highest five years that will grow by the almighty "cost of living" adjustment every year for 30 years, assuming a life expectancy of 75. Thus, the employee who contributed a mere $74,425 to the system will receive payments totaling $1,230,000 if he receives annual 3 percent cost-of-living adjustments. This is unsustainable, unfair and unacceptable.

Plowing streets and answering 911 calls entitles Hanson to a paycheck. It does not entitle Hanson to early retirement on the backs of his neighbors.

Re: Re: Another Reason to Private School in Rhode Island

Actually, what struck me about Rhody's comment was how this early sentence betrays the ridiculousness of his point:

If any of us were sent back to work under a court order, our attitude might not be that great, either.

Most of us, I venture to suggest, cannot envision circumstances in which a court would have to order us back to work. We take jobs understanding the general structure of the career ladder and expecting that raises will be related to: 1) our performance, and 2) our employers' fortunes. The idea of banding with coworkers for a work stoppage with the intention of procuring even larger raises despite the employer's well-known financial hardships and a lack of notable improvement (to say the least) probably strikes the majority of us as a species of lunacy.

The same assessment of general experience applies to Monique's suggestion that elected officials ought to negotiate task-by-task responsibilities into contracts. Who among us has that degree of clarity when it comes to occupational delineation? Most of us do the jobs for which we were hired — broadly defined — undertaking all that is necessary.

If the job description is to educate children according to standards set by the community and the state, and the state and community define being educated as being able to produce a final project, then it is the job of the teachers to ensure that each student is able to clear the bar. Period. "You didn't negotiate for fifteen minutes of advice as I walked to the car" would be a profoundly selfish and unprofessional insistence, and there is little distance between that and acting as "an adult adviser."

Another Reason to Private School in Rhode Island

Here's another shining example of what public sector unions — specifically teachers' unions, specifically the NEA — have wrought:

The state Department of Education does not endorse the high school's plan for students to stand before their English classes to present their senior projects — a new graduation requirement here this year. ...

Most of the problems Tiverton High faces with its graduation plan can be traced to a long-running labor dispute involving teachers, who have been working under court order since last September. ...

Until now, a high school teacher has volunteered as a senior project coordinator, recruiting outside mentors to help students delve into their special interests and organizing and training judges for the culminating presentations.

But with the contract dispute permeating labor-management relations since last September, teachers have not volunteered to do much beyond their required duties. ...

Nor do the prescribed duties include teachers fulfilling another new state requirement that all high school students have an adult adviser: someone who knows them well and can help them over the rough spots that often occur in adolescence.

The General Assembly should end public sector unionization — specifically teacher unionization.

What a Crock

Pat Crowley's complaints about a letter that Governor Carcieri apparently sent to Bob Walsh, Crowley's NEA boss, are transparently two-faced in so many ways that I won't enumerate them. Simply put, the idea that Walsh would respond otherwise than with the mind-numbing reply that Crowley publishes is laughable. It is, let's just say, improbable that the scene in the office was of Walsh demanding that Crowley come to his office, closing the door behind him, and lecturing him about the messes that he gets the organization in. More likely, the message from above was more akin to: "You must be doing something right." The governor's office surely understood as much.

The tragedy of the matter is that opportunity exists for a more profitable discourse. For a taste of the light so thoroughly extinguished, consider a comment to Crowley's post by Mike in RI:

It's precisely posts like this Pat that should cause concern. Why the hostility? I care very much about what you have to say publicly because I do believe you represent teachers. As a teacher I watch carefully the public statements and behavior of anyone who speaks on the topic of education. You Pat seem more than eager to stir the controversial pot, and therefore you are sure to garner more attention from teachers. I haven't seen any letters-to-the-editor from Marcia Reback picking a fight with the governor publicly, calling his wife a racist, or sharing her opinions about the Catholic church. She hasn't picketed local businesses, or flipped off those with whom she disagrees. If she had I would be sharing my thoughts with her personally. As an RIFT member it is my dues that pay her salary. You are NEA Pat, so I am not afforded that opportunity.

Feel free to review each and every one of my comments on this blog or any other. You will find that none of them were ever made during the time when school was in session. As a public employee, I feel it important to keep separate my opinions about politics and things not related to education out of respect for my students and parents. Therefore I will not use my name.

And just to clarify, are you suggesting that you wrote a letter to the ProJo with your Lincoln address and the editors changed it to Cranston? That seems odd.

Pat, you are passionate about your causes, and I have a great deal of respect for that. You must have been very good as a union organizer with the Teamsters. I mean that honestly. But teachers' unions are more professional in nature, and play a public role in communities across the state. We work with children and their families, and our approach must be very different from that of the Teamsters. I feel the political hostility you often exhibit publicly is a detriment to the cause of public education, which is my passion. Picking fights with the governor might make you feel good, but does little to help teachers and only angers more of the public that pays our salaries.

The only response to Mike came from RIFuturite Evan, dismissing him outright on the basis of past "conservative rants." The point is that, if Walsh had his own reservations about the hues with which Crowley paints his professional organization, he'd have at least mustered an empathetic response to what is clearly a sincere and thoughtful point on Mike's part.

And the reality is that, if Crowley weren't a high-ranker with the NEA, he'd be just another progressive crank, easily ignored and sparsely published. The damage that the educators' union is doing to education in Rhode Island is an affront to decency and an insult to intellectual endeavors.

Feinting Round One

Surely, I've become too apt to be suspicious, but something in this labor rep's reaction to the supplemental budget — in conjunction with the legislators' "yelling and screaming" during debate of it — reminds me that this was merely the preface:

"It's devastating," said Dennis Grilli, head of the largest state employees union, Council 94. "All in all, I don't think we fared very well."

Labor's disappointment was met with praise from Governor Carcieri's office, which applauded the Democrat-dominated Assembly's decision to avoid raising taxes to help close the massive budget hole.

I can already hear the claim that labor's already taken "devastating" cuts, so now it's the taxpayers' (or the business community's) turn.

Why Should a Study Focus on the Underlying Problem?

Here's the laugh line from Jill Rodrigues's Sakonnet Times story on the professional study that concluded — shockingly — that the Portsmouth school system needs more money:

Although much of that money is spent on salaries and benefits, the consultants did not weigh in on contract provisions and their impacts on the district.

Reading some of the details from Berkshire Advisors' report gives one the sense of a skewed mentality articulated: The school district needs to spend more on everything (except nurses), increasing programs for everybody from those with special needs to those with especially talents, but the money is just supposed to be found.

Frankly, the district would have made a modest advance in that regard by saving its consultation expenditures and asking any Rhode Island parent with some common sense what he or she believes the problem to be. More and more, the practical answer is: a lack of vouchers for private school.

Woe Is the Early Retiree

Steve Peoples's story, which Marc mentioned earlier, of the likely mass retirement of public workers wishing to retain the current healthcare deal for retirees emanates cognitive dissonance. How are readers expected to react to this:

Sheila Ellis waited for nearly an hour inside the stuffy reception area of the state retirement office yesterday afternoon. And she would have waited longer, given what was at stake.

At just 45 years old, Ellis must decide whether to retire from the state job she has held since high school, or risk losing substantial health-care coverage for the rest of her life.

It's a decision she wanted to talk over with a retirement counselor.

"I'm young enough, it would be nice to work," said Ellis, who has worked with developmentally disabled adults for the last 28 years.

But really, her mind was already made up. State lawmakers this week pushed Ellis and probably thousands more state employees into retirement.

So Ms. Ellis will either spend the next forty years or so pursuing other interests, or she'll find another job and increase her pay and security. Are we supposed to feel an emotional twinge at that? I can't be alone in my reaction to the thoughts of another state employee:

Like Ellis, longtime state worker Deborah DiPietro doesn't have to think too hard to decide what to do. The 52-year-old taxpayer service specialist already crunched the numbers with a retirement counselor.

"I actually love my job. I love the people I work with. It's to the point where I got people saying, 'You can’t leave,"" said DiPietro, who has spent the last 34 years working for state government. "But when I do the numbers, I have to leave. That's not a good way to feel."

Well, apparently Ms. DiPietro doesn't love her job enough to keep doing it for remuneration that's a little more in keeping with the deals that the rest of us working stiffs get.

After Further Thought

I've most likely been overstating the number of Tiverton teachers who stand to lose their jobs if the union remains implacable. Thirty-four notices of potential layoffs went out to meet a deadline; one position was eliminated in the school budget as passed; so I've been saying that intransigence might result in the actual layoffs of the other thirty-three.

The probability, however, is that the school committee sought to allow itself options should circumstances require positions to be eliminated. Their situation would have to be dire indeed for such a large portion of the workforce to be let go.

My point remains, though: union persistence will cost some members dearly, and a negotiating collective that is willing to push things that far would seek to soak up any new funds that become available.

Out of the Din

Throughout my adult years, I'd never so much as considered sending my children to private school (parochial or otherwise) until very recently. Even my particular tincture of religious faith leads me strongly to feel that spending one's formative years among a cross-section of the local society — an opportunity that my own experience led me to take as an apt description of the public school environment — is a valuable component of education. Yet, yesterday our attempts to move our children outside of Tiverton's school district met with success.

After receiving my wife's call, in the morning, the rest of the day brought a noticeable increase in my stress level, involving anxiety about the now-certain new monthly bill. But what is one to do? The headline at the top of this week's Sakonnet Times is "Teachers reject two-year offer":

Tiverton teachers Monday afternoon "clearly expressed disapproval" of a two-year contract proposal put forward by the School Committee Friday, March 14, according to Amy Mullen, the union's president and Pocasset School teacher.

The school committee's contract offer was not proposed for ratification, and no vote was taken, said Ms. Mullen. Rather, it was discussed with "roughly 192 members present" at what union leadership characterized as an "emergency union meeting" at Green Valley Country Club in Portsmouth that began at 4 p.m. Monday and lasted nearly an hour and a half.

"The membership let us know it was not acceptable," Ms. Mullen said.

The complaint is that, when increasing healthcare costs are factored in, step 10 teachers will see minimal increases. Me, I can't keep my head from shaking: These teachers know the problems facing our state and our town. They know that money is extremely tight — so much so that their unreasonable demands will require the district to send out up to three dozen pink slips. Yet they persist.

And they persist in this (from an anonymous letter in the print edition's "Web Words" section):

Teachers, at this point why start anything to benefit the students. As parents of seniors, we know first hand you have disappointed the students all year. Some of the teachers were unprofessional, discussing the contract situation in the classroom, threatening to cancel events such as homecoming, dances and prom. You claim to be fulfilling your contract responsibilities, but as far as the students and parents are concerned, you failed! The seniors worked hard on their senior projects and, at this point, knowing they will not be graded by the teachers for their presentation portion of the project, their enthusiasm has diminished. This just adds to the list of disappointments such as mock trial, math team, class advisers, yearly art gallery shows, class trips, National Honor Society attendance, College Fair, limited letters of recommendation and limited after school help.Fortunately for the students, replacements were found and many of the above activities continued due to the principal and his office staff and concerned parents. Yet again you try to use the seniors as pawns! So you're not going to show up at graduation, who cares, it's too late. You lost the respect of most students and parents.

What responsible parent wouldn't reconsider the value of a public school education when faced with such an environment? I can't be alone in veritably itching for a concrete opportunity to fight for a school choice/voucher system.

A Raise over a Coworker

The budget passed at the last Tiverton School Committee meeting — largely reflecting the latest teacher contract proposed — included the loss of only one teaching position from the payrolls. Prior to that, the district had sent out thirty-four non-renewal notices. Apparently, three-quarters of the teachers are willing to accept the risk (and probable sacrifice) of those three dozen peers:

In a straw poll, 144 teachers — three quarters of the union membership — indicated their disapproval of a two-year contract proposal from the School Committee that the union president says would eat up virtually all the raises with stiff hikes in out-of-pocket health-care costs in the second year.

Amy Mullen, the union president, said the committee's proposal in the second year would mean $3-a-week raises to teachers with at least 10 years' experience — slightly more than half the membership.

The remaining teachers, who are still working their way up the experience ladder, would come out at least $1,300 ahead in the second year, Mullen said.

Well, why would experienced teachers want to tough it out with stagnant $70,000-ish salaries until budget issues turn around? They've got seniority, after all.

Here, by the way, is a flashpoint that ought to be vehemently taken off the table immediately in response to the teachers' continued plying of the immoral work-to-rule strategy:

Last week, the School Committee passed on a union proposal for a one-year agreement that would have granted 3-percent cost-of-living increases, but conceded a jump of $522 in the employee share of a family health insurance plan, to $1,662 from $1,100.

The one year-agreement would have been retroactive to the expiration of the most recent agreement at the end of last August.

Nothing should be retroactive. You strike, you play games with children's educations, you get what you get during that period.

ADDENDUM:

I hate to complain about such things, but I really found Gina Macris's reportage to be confusing. Why does she allow Mullen to break out the step 10 teachers' potential raises on a weekly basis and then transition immediately to the annual increase of other teachers? Why, for that matter does she studiously avoid using the term "step," choosing instead the non-contractual phrase "experience ladder"?

Thomas Wigand: Camouflage Green

As reported in the Providence Journal on March 13: "A coalition of labor unions, environmental advocates and antipoverty groups are collaborating to promote legislation that would help spark new renewable-energy industries in Rhode Island. The group, which calls itself the Green Jobs Alliance, says it has come together to promote a 'green economy' that improves the environment while at the same time creates middle-class jobs."

Neither the advance press release announcing the press conference regarding the rollout of this "Green Jobs Alliance," nor the subsequent Providence Journal story, made mention of the national and international roots and affiliations of this alliance. So it is fair to posit that there was a deliberate attempt to make it appear that this is some sort of homegrown, spontaneous effort within Rhode Island. But as we shall see, this seems unlikely — which in turn begs the question as to why the organizers sought to downplay those affiliations.

The Sierra Club, which was at the Providence news conference, has been engaged in a "partnership" with the United Steelworkers of America called the "Blue-Green Alliance" since 1996. This alliance, on March 13–14 hosted a conference called "Good Jobs, Green Jobs: A National Green Jobs Conference" in Pittsburgh. The speakers list includes representatives from various labor unions and the leadership of the AFL-CIO, which certainly was known to another attendee at the Providence news conference, George Nee of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO [who, with the local Sierra Club, co-authored a commentary piece calling for building wind farms in Rhode Island that appeared in the Providence Journal on February 20th].

The Blue-Green Alliance is sponsoring green jobs initiatives that appear identical to the Rhode Island "wind energy" effort in various of the "rust belt" states (arguably Rhode Island is one of the leading states in the expansion of the "rust belt" to encompass not just the upper Midwest, but the Northeast, as well). While an expansion of wind and solar powered energy generation is probably a good thing, it is fair to presume that the "green jobs" that they propose to create will actually be in the nature of taxpayer financed public works projects rather than incubating new private sector industries. After all, not every state can become a "leader" in a new "green" manufacturing sector, though it appears that this is how it is being marketed in each state.

Organized labor loves public works projects because they are de facto "corporate welfare" for unions. This is done through what are called "prevailing wage laws" and "project labor agreements." What these do is require public works projects (or private projects that get tax breaks) to pay union wages, the effect being that unionized contractors don't have to compete in a true competitive bidding process, so the playing field is shifted in favor of the unions … while the taxpayers are locked in to paying a higher-than-market price for the projects.

It is not a stretch to believe that the unspoken agenda here is to push new taxpayer financed public works projects, albeit labeling them as "good for the environment" and "fostering new industries with good paying jobs." After all, the Providence Place Mall and Route 95 projects are completed, so organized labor is no doubt on the hunt for new projects to fill the void.

Query whether Mr. Nee and the rest of organized labor would be willing, for the good of the environment, "to exempt such" green" projects from "prevailing wage" and "project labor agreements" so that they can be done at lesser cost, and so more of them can be completed. I think we all know the answer.

There is an international angle to this, as well. A group called the International Trade Union Confederation has involved itself with "global warming." This group declares on its Web site that "together with its affiliates, its regional organisations, the Global Union Federations, as well as with non-governmental organisations, the ITUC carries out ongoing campaign action for the universal respect of trade union rights, as guaranteed by the Conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)." The ILO is an affiliate of the United Nations.

The Blue-Green Alliance and the ITUC are advocating for the use of trade agreements and treaties to advance a "green" agenda, including "protections" for "workers rights." To the ITUC and ILO, "workers rights" is a euphemism for the government's actively promoting union organizing and otherwise using its power to subsidize organized labor, such as eliminating workers rights to a secret ballot election by enacting statutory requirements allowing union organizers to collect "voluntary" signatures from workers (e.g., you can just imagine Teamster organizers collect "voluntary" signatures), and once a simple majority of employees have signed, imposing a union on the entire workforce. (Note that a simple majority of signatures would not be allowed to later decertify a union; rather, a secret ballot election would still be required for that.)

In fact, the 2007 ITUC "Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights" criticizes the United States for preserving an employer's rights to demand a federally supervised secret ballot election for employees contemplating unionization and to conduct meetings with employees (on paid time) to explain to workers the employer's position on unionization (otherwise known as First Amendment rights). The AFL-CIO's single biggest legislative goal is to have enacted an Orwellianly named statute called the "Employee Free Choice Act" that would strip workers of secret ballot election protections (at least when bringing unions in).

It is not a stretch to imagine that organized labor simultaneously seeks to bypass the legislative process and advance this special-interest agenda by burying it within trade agreements and treaties marketed to the public as "green." Ironically, the presence of such labor union special-interest terms might discourage emerging countries from entering into such trade agreements and treaties, thus actually inhibiting the "green" initiatives that are supposedly being advanced.

Certainly, advancing a "greener" economy is desirable. And there is nothing wrong with organized labor pushing its agenda, although it is a special interest. But neither is it wrong to recognize that there is much institutional self-interest going on here, and that organized labor's green initiatives are predominately "camouflage green" intended to mask its pursuit of its own self interests under the halo of environmentalism.

Unhoodwinkable

In her post this afternoon, Monique didn't quote my favorite unionist quotations in that article about the governor's proposal to require presigning public hearings on public contracts (emphasis added):

"I'm halfway decent at reading tea leaves and I'm pretty clear that this budget article is about putting pressure on public officials not to give decent, in my view, pay raises and benefits to public sector workers," said James Parisi, a lobbyist for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals. "It's built on a couple false assumptions — that the employer doesn't know what they're doing and they're getting hoodwinked by unions…. Public perception and the chatter out there aside, it's just not true and you need to know it's not true."

Allow me to be the first to confirm Mr. Parisi in his suspicion that the public probably doesn't agree with his view of "decent raises and benefits." In the eye of we many beholders (who are thus far beholden), his "decent" is our "decadent," "disproportionate," and sometimes "diabolical."

However, the majority of us don't, I believe, take our public representatives to be "getting hoodwinked" so much as having insufficient motivation to consider what our reaction might be were the contracts laid before us. When they do, they take the tack of the Tiverton School Committee and bring salient numbers before the public without a public hearing mandate.

Negotiating Child Abuse

So what are the odds of this becoming law?

Amending state law to clearly prohibit strikes is the task force's first recommendation. If Carcieri supports the plan as expected, he would have to ask lawmakers to submit the bill to the General Assembly for a vote.

Officials at the state Department of Education researched tougher labor laws in Pennsylvania and New York when crafting the amendments, according to Deputy Education Commissioner David V. Abbott. One amendment would force teachers who strike to pay a penalty of two days' pay into a state school fund for every day on strike. When teachers strike now, they suffer no financial consequences.

The changes also would prohibit strikes and expand the definition to include "any strike or other concerted job action commonly referred to as 'work to rule' including, without limitation, any stoppage of work, slowdown or curtailment of one more customary teaching practices that are typically provided or performed by teachers in the absence of a strike." Superintendents and principals told the task force they consider "work-to-rule" actions more detrimental to students than strikes, as the action can drag on for years, as it did in Warwick. West Warwick, Tiverton and East Greenwich have also recently experienced periods of "work-to-rule," also called "contract compliance."

Teacher strikes and work-to-rule aren't "negotiation tactics"; they're extortionary child abuse. They take advantage of children's innocence and taxpayers' lack of choice concerning schooling.

Although he's obviously not banned or vocally denounced strikes and work-to-rule within his own organization, the NEA's Bob Walsh says (in the Projo's paraphrase) that he "prefers third-party binding arbitration." No doubt he does! Put the contracts in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, and everybody else can disclaim responsibility for the crushing increases in government spending.

Want an alternative to strikes and work-to-rule? How about teachers individually negotiate with their employers to reach agreements that reflect their actual value to the district, as well as the district's value to them?

The Most Basic Requirements

In a letter to the editor of the Sakonnet Times (not online), Tiverton High School physics and chemistry teacher Richard Bernardo offers general encouragement to everybody involved in the contract disputes to "roll[] up [their] sleeves and [get] the job done." In light of news released since Mr. Bernardo penned his letter, this part sticks out:

The teachers are desperate; they are desperate because, in reality, they are in the fifth year of a three-year contract. Lying underneath the fact is the reality that they knew a long time ago that they had chosen a profession such that they would be underpaid and under-appreciated. However, the current development was not expected; this is their livelihood, their bread-and-butter, on the table; in spite of everything, they fear that they have failed at this most basic of life's requirements.

Having looked at the step levels of Tiverton teachers (which increases they've continued to receive, along with annual raises, except for this year... so far), I'd say Mr. Bernardo's being a bit melodramatic. Those teachers, however, who are affected by the news that I mentioned above, would be justified in feeling desperate:

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the School Committee agreed to send nonrenewal notices to 34 teachers for the next school year. State law requires teachers be notified before March 1 if there is a chance they might be laid off the following school year.

The notices will go to 15 teachers at the middle school, 12 at the high school, and 7 at elementary schools, Fiore said.

Squirm as the union might, the money is simply not there, and the union method requires an all-or-nothing approach that is leaving 34 teachers with nothing (at least when it comes to a contract for next year). Making matters worse, Tiverton's teachers won't be alone in the East Bay answering education want ads.

I'm truly sorry to hear about lost jobs, not the least because, as a parent, I'd prefer for the services that the district offers to be increasing. That might save me the time (at least) of looking into private schools. But as long as teachers continue to tie their fortunes to an organization that handles them as factory workers and must justify its existence — with emphasis on those with longevity — solutions for accommodating everybody will be illusory.