New York City Teachers Union Protests Education Cutbacks, Joins May 12 ‘Mobilization’

The move paves the way for a potential showdown between the mayor and teachers over the new spending plan for the fiscal year beginning in July. The budget proposals come as teachers across the country are battling cuts to education. Some have found themselves in the legislative pushback against unionized public employees.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the layoffs last Friday when he unveiled his $65.7 billion budget that includes cuts to several agencies. Bloomberg said the measures were necessitated by funding cutbacks from state and federal agencies, adding he had already used extra taxpayer money to plug the education funding gap.

Currently, there are 75,000 public school teachers in New York City. Under the current proposal, 4,100 teachers will be laid off and 2,000 teachers will be phased out through attrition. Including attrition, that means one in eight teachers will lose their jobs, the first significant layoff since the city’s financial crisis in the 1970s. The cuts would increases class sizes on average by two or three children, leaving 69,000 teachers to educate about 1 million students, the Associated Press reports.

Some say Bloomberg’s announcement is an effort to cull more funding from state government, or pressure Albany lawmakers to eliminate the seniority provision protecting layoffs for long-time teachers.

The mayor’s announcement came one day before the UFT’s spring education conference. Michael Mulgrew, president of the union, told the crowd that the mayor is ​“playing political games” in order to gain concessions. The union also says the city has a $3.2 billion surplus and hasn’t used the money to avert layoffs. City officials say about $300 million is needed to avoid just the teacher layoffs, or $435 million for the total job cuts.

The budget also needs approval from the City Council, which has raised concerns about the cutbacks. But even if the mayor and the officials can find a middle ground, the future looks bleak as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has reportedly planned to reduce education funding by as much as $500 million next year.

In other states, teachers are facing increasing pressure from state and local governments. In California, teachers are staging a weeklong campaign to prevent budget cuts to education and dozens have reportedly been arrested at the state Capitol in Sacramento. The California Teachers Association and others are pressing lawmakers into to extend taxes to fund schools.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Corbett singled out teachers’ unions for putting contracts over curriculums, blaming labor poorly performing schools. In Ohio, unionized teachers agreed last Friday to pay higher dues to help fund a referendum against the recent collective bargaining law. The Ohio Education Association is raising funds to repeal a law that limits public employees from negotiating health care, sick time and pension benefits.

And in Washington, D.C., 660 teaching jobs will be eliminated next month due to budget concerns. A local union official says it is just a way to layoff older teachers.

The conflicts have grown from the larger campaigns to reduce the bargaining power of unions. But debates over seniority firing and how to best evaluate teacher performance have also magnified the labor strife. Teachers’ unions and administrators have struggled to find a middle ground for education reform policy, but the added dimension of layoff threats further complicates negotiations for the future.