Commentary: For Randi Weingarten, It’s Been a Very Good Month
by Stuart Dunn

On April 12, Mayor Giuliani announced the completion of contract negotiations with District Council 37. According to the NY Times, the contract calls for a four percent increase retroactive to April 1, 2000, another increase of four percent retroactive to April 1, 2001, and an increase of one percent, which the district council’s locals can distribute in any way they want. Most members will receive an additional three percent by reducing their pension contributions without decreasing their pensions. The contract, which expires in June 2002, requires no productivity increases to offset these pay increases.

Randi Weingarten, President of the UFT, immediately announced that the District 37 contract should not serve as a pattern for her union. In private, I expect she jumped for joy. The Mayor, who had made merit-pay the central condition for his bargaining with the city’s unions, came away with the acknowledgment that the city had the right under this agreement to pay additional compensation to employees for outstanding performance—some merit-pay agreement. If the teachers can get a similar provision Ms. Weingarten will be a happy camper.

This announcement was followed by a conference entitled, Exemplary Educational Practices, Labor/Management Issues. It is unusual for a Chief Executive to attend such a conference during contract negotiations, and even more unusual to call for significant salary increases for his employees, but that is exactly what Schools Chancellor Harold Levy did. This conference turned out to be a big love-in, except for the Mayor’s contribution. It is now clear that the Chancellor supports the union position that the teachers should receive a large, across-the-board salary increase. His argument is that this will make NYC competitive in the hiring and retention of quality teachers. He neglects the fact that all the other school districts are calling for similar increases, which if achieved, would leave NYC exactly where it started, except that it would have a bigger bill to pay.

The UFT view is that the teachers deserve a big increase. I don’t know what the teachers deserve, the “just wage” having gone out with the Middle Ages. However, if it takes higher salaries to hire and retain high quality teachers, NYC will have to pay higher salaries. But, it must be sure it is paying these salaries for high quality teaching. The only way I know of to achieve this is through pay-for-performance. The role of the union is to negotiate a merit pool; management should determine how that money is distributed.

At the same conference, Bob Chase of the NEA, said, “salaries are a quality issue.” I think that should read, “quality is a salary issue.” It is to be hoped that the Mayor will insist on a real merit-pay contract, and that the candidates for mayor will not so desire the support of the UFT that they will undercut the negotiation.

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