Before the school…
By Adam Kramer
Queens public school teachers were out in force Monday as they joined their brethren around the city to show their anger over the lack of a contract and to push for fair and equitable pay from the city with informational picketing.
Before the school bell rang Monday morning and after it sounded the end of the day Monday afternoon, borough teachers walked the picket line in front of their respective schools. After 17 months without a contract, teachers from Astoria to Glen Oaks, from Flushing to Springfield Gardens and from Jamaica to Ridgewood turned up the volume on their demands for a new and just contract.
“This is degrading,” said Robin Miller, who was marching with 30 of her colleagues in front of PS 33 at 91-37 222nd St. in Queens Village. “We should not be doing this. I think if we continue support the union it will go through. This is just the first step.”
The teachers, wearing signs that read, “We’ve lost our patience” and “Enough is enough,” have been without a contract for 17 months. They battled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and now hope to negotiate with Mayor Michael Bloomberg on a contract. Teachers, frustrated by the lack of progress, have called for a strike vote on Wednesday before they go into a scheduled negotiation meeting with the mayor Thursday.
Teachers have been pushing for a 24 percent pay raise, which would bring them into line with the teachers’ pay scale in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Linda Wigandt, the UFT leader and a teacher at PS 33, said the teachers understand that after Sept. 11 money has been tight. But she said they had been without a contract for nearly two years.
“We want some recognition for what we do,” she said. “I have confidence in the mayor and maybe this will push the thing over the edge, and we will sign a contract. Then we can get back to teaching the kids.”
Lorraine Frankel, also of PS 33, pointed out that they all loved their jobs and wanted the most qualified teachers for the students, but the city was not able to recruit the best teachers with the discrepancy in pay compared to the suburbs.
“No one wants to be a millionaire, but we want fair pay for our hard work,” she said. “I love this job because it is one of the few jobs where you can have an impact on children. But we are not doing the kids justice when we work in overcrowded classes.”
Janice Reiff, UFT chapter leader at PS 82 at 88-02 144th St. in Jamaica, said the school has lost eight teachers, six to Long Island schools and two to Westchester schools, as well as a principal. In some cases, teachers who left for Long Island schools got a pay increase of about $15,000 a year, she said.
“That’s not taking a course or learning anything new,” Reiff said. “That’s just for the move.”
Beverly Sealove, a staff development worker at PS 82, said she does not expect Bloomberg to handle the situation any better than Giuliani did. In addition, she said she was baffled by the reluctance to spend money on education.
“We want to know why the city’s mayors don’t care about us,” Sealove said. “We haven’t had a mayor who cared about us since John Lindsay.”
The teachers union organized the informational picketing after a fact-finding report last week issued a non-binding recommendation to increase wages 16.6 percent and health care benefits over the next 27 months. The recommendation also called for a 15 percent across-the-board raise with part of it retroactive to Nov. 16, 2000.
The report, which rejected merit pay and the elimination of sabbaticals, recommended $56 million be made available for recruitment and retention of teachers, lengthening the work day by 20 minutes and a no-layoff guarantee for all titles.
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
