-By Warner Todd Huston
The outrage of union activities never ceases to amaze. From the Education Week blog we find that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the teachers union of New York, spends almost $200,000 a year of its member’s dues money on an office in Boca Raton, Florida! As EdWeek drolly says, “That’s not peanuts for a union fretting about its financially strapped members.”
Turns out that the reason the office exists is because of a union perk to retired teachers: permanent summer jobs at nearly $50 and hour.
According to Ed Week it’s called “retention rights.” The deal is that teachers with long tenure can come back each summer from their cushy retirement homes in Florida and take summer teaching jobs that would otherwise go to current, working teachers. These retired teachers essentially have first dibs on those summer jobs above the claims of the current workforce of New York educators. Retired teachers have a huge vested interest in keeping tabs on their old union, vote heavily to retain this perk, and they make huge cash taking advantage of the perk. So, the Boca office is there to serve them.
Ed Week details how lucrative this perk is for retired teachers.
One reliable source in the NYCDOE estimates that there are “hundreds of teachers who take advantage of retention rights.” At the per session hourly rate of $41.98, with average summer school lengths ranging from 60 to 150 hours, the average per session teacher is earning between $2,500 and $6,300–that’s probably a million bucks or more a year that snow birds are claiming from current teachers.
So, “retired” doesn’t mean a whole lot when it comes to taking summer jobs away from the working teachers apparently. The whole thing reminds me of a quote by the Michael Corleone character from The Godfather, “Just when I thought I was out,” he said, “they pull me back in. ” Only this time it would be the working teachers on the outside looking in while the gray-mafia of retired teachers come up each year from Florida to muscle them aside for the rich summer takings.
Seriously, I never thought I’d feel sorry for a union member, but in this case, the working teachers of New York are getting screwed by their own elderly brethren! The swipe from family is the unkindest cut of all.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky and American Thinker
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 200 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
Huston has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Huston’s work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Bortz, and Michael Savage. He has appeared on the G. Gordon Liddy show, dozens of local shows from coast to coast, and many blogtalk radio shows.
Mr. Huston has appeared on local TV news to discuss his writing, has been a guest of CNN’s blogger lunch, and has appeared on Breitbart TV’s B-Team show.
Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com and has a blog on the Tribune-Owned http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/ChicagoNow.com website. He is a well known writer on Illinois politics.
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All the State has to do is declare that anyone who works in NY State schools MUST live in NY State. For at least the past school year and only start receiving entry-level pay. Period.
This is shameful. They threw me out of the NYS Education building where I was working cuz I was actually working. Imagine that? I didn’t want to take taxpayer’s money without earning it. So they fired me. Good riddance.
PS. Yes, they told me that is why.