Mayor Bill de Blasio Sends a Video Love Letter to the Teachers Union. Kids and Taxpayers Get Jilted.

New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) expressed his adoration
for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in a video tribute
that played at the union’s annual conference in Los Angeles over
the weekend. (Click above to watch.) In his remarks, de Blasio
called AFT President Randi Weingarten “a change agent” who has
“been fighting the good fight,” and he lauded local union boss
Michael Mulgrew as a “steadfast advocate for his members,” who
showed in recent contract negotiation that “he cared just as deeply
about the students of New York City.”

So how about that just-inked teachers contract that de Blasio
called “a testament of what can be achieved when people of goodwill
work together?” In a nutshell, the mayor agreed to large
retroactive raises the city can’t afford, and in exchange extracted
few concessions regarding lockstep pay and rules that make it
impossible to kick off the payroll teachers who no longer have to
show up for work because principals don’t want them in their
schools.

At recent public forum hosted by The Manhattan Institute
(watch
it online), an expert panel dissected the contract:

• Teachers are eligible to earn merit bonuses worth up to
  $20,000, but the pay bumps have to be cleared by a “central
  committee” that includes representatives from the union. “This
  seems a lot more like patronage than it does merit pay,” said Jenny
  Sedlis of StudentsFirstNY. It means
  “more bureaucracy and less power for the educators out in the
  field,” said Daniel Weisberg of The New
  Teacher Project.
• Teachers get raises amounting to 19% through 2018, including
  retroactive raises for 2009 and 20010 worth $4.3 billion, which the
  city will pay out over the next six years. “In 2018, we’ll have a
  $9.8 billion teacher payroll, and 9% will be for work done nearly a
  decade ago,” noted the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas.
• The contract stipulates that the city and union must work
  together to find $1.3 billion in annual health care savings, but it
  ruled out asking teachers to contribute to their own health care
  premiums (as pretty much every other member of the American labor
  force does). So where then will all that savings come from? “A lot
  of us are skeptical this is going to produce results,” said Charles
  Brecher of the Citizens Budget
  Commission.
• How about those 1200 tenured teachers on the payroll who sit at
  home because they can’t find a job? The new contract establishes a
  limited, temporary “expedited” removal process with no
  teeth. “I have absolutely no faith it will result in teachers
  getting exited,” says Weisberg, a former city lawyer who used to
  sit across the bargaining table from the UFT. “It’s window
  dressing.”

In other news, Mayor de Blasio is
packing his bags for a 10-day vacation in Italy, where he’ll
also set aside time to accomplish some of his essential duties in
governing New York by discussing climate change and income
inequality with the italians.

In a recent Reason TV video, I traced de Blasio’s sycophantic
relationship with AFT boss Randi Weingarten back to 2003, making a
case that his steadfast opposition to charter schools is rooted in
his desire to please the union.