COSE D
ELL’ALTRO MONDO ( direbbe Vittorio Zucconi)Ovvero
al peggio non c’è fine.
E’ vero, in USA gli insegnanti hanno uno stipendio più elevato del nostro. Ma
il costo della vita è ben più
alto e poi, che vita stressante è
la loro.
E
quando scioperano per il miglioramento economico e normativo, ricevono denuncia
da parte delle famiglie per abbandono dei minori e
finiscono anche in galera,
com’è accaduto a 228 colleghi a dicembre nello stato del New Jersey. E la
parcella degli avvocati americani è abbastanza
“salata”.
February
2, 2002 New York Times
Tentative
Deal Struck on Teacher Contract
Hours
after a court-appointed mediator denounced the labor strife and personal
animosities in the Middletown, N.J., school system, a tentative agreement was
reached last night in the bitter contract dispute that led to a strike and the
jailing of 228 teachers in December.
The
town's nine-member school board voted unanimously to accept proposals that the
mediator, Ronald J. Riccio, had made earlier in the day to increase both
teachers' wages and the amount they pay for medical benefits, said the board's
lawyer, Malachi J. Kenney. The leaders of Middletown's teachers union agreed
last week to accept in principle whatever Mr. Riccio recommended in his report,
which was released yesterday afternoon.
His
proposed four-year contract awaits ratification by the union's 1,000 members.
Mr.
Kenney said the school board's final acceptance had two conditions. The first,
he said, is that the union and board agree on ways to divide the wage increases
between the district's newer teachers at the bottom of the pay scale and veteran
teachers at the top.
The
other is that the union agree to drop lawsuits filed after the strike to add
members to its bargaining unit, and to prevent the board from docking teachers'
pay for the seven- day walkout, he said.
The
school board acted after Mr. Riccio had sharply criticized leaders of both the
union and board and urged an end to years of divisiveness. He said they had
created a "destructive confrontational culture" in Middletown.
Unless
that culture is ended, he warned, it will erode property values, destroy
communal spirit and permanently harm the education of the town's 10,500 students.
Stepping
beyond a mediator's traditional role, Mr. Riccio combined his proposals with a
public scolding of union and board leaders, and a lecture on the value of
education and their "moral and legal duty" to protect the welfare of
students.
Mr.
Riccio agreed to mediate the contract dispute on Dec. 7, after Middletown's
teachers staged their second illegal strike in three years and a State Superior
Court judge, Clarkson S. Fisher Jr., sent 228 — about a quarter of the town's
teaching staff — to jail for violating his back-to- work order.
Many
Middletown residents denounced the teachers for the walkout. Meanwhile, the
teachers turned Judge Clarkson's contempt hearings in Freehold into a forum for
denunciations of the school board as an overbearing agency that they said had
bullied them and showed them little respect over the years.
Mr.
Riccio found that ill will and animosity had persisted for years, fueled in part
by a school board that in the mid-1990's was preoccupied with cutting costs and
bringing a "back-to-basics" philosophy of education to Middletown's 17
schools.
As
part of its campaign, that board imposed a contract in 1998 that required
teachers to pay, for the first time, a share of the premiums for their health
care benefits.
Friction
and resentment lingering from that contract, which touched off a strike in 1998,
have persisted and led to the most recent strike.
During
his seven-week mediation effort, Mr Riccio said the two sides had settled 11 of
13 issues blocking agreement on a new contract. The two issues that had remained
unresolved — wages and health care costs — had persisted for months.
Mr.
Riccio said the two sides had been so close on those issues that a in a more
tranquil district they could have been settled much sooner.
Mr.
Riccio's proposal called for annual salary increases of 4 percent, 4.3 percent,
4.4 percent and 4.6 percent. The union had asked for percentage increases of
4.25, 4.5, 4.75 and 5. The board had offered a three-year contract with
increases of 3.9 percent, 4 percent and 4.1 percent.
On
the issue of health benefits, Mr. Riccio proposed annual increases in the total
amount teachers pay for their health insurance. The total now is $160,458. Mr.
Riccio's plan calls for increases of $125,000, $150,000, $170,000 and $200,000
over four years.
The
union had opposed any increase. The board wanted an increase of $208,831 for the
first year of a three-year contract, and $229,000 and $252,000 for the next two.
As
a gesture of goodwill and an end to the years of fighting, Mr. Riccio called on
both sides to issue a joint written statement saying that they had settled their
dispute based on his proposals.
He
also asked them to commit themselves publicly in writing to "collaboration
and community- building."
Mr.
Riccio appealed to both sides to end years of animosity and start treating each
other with civility, professionalism and respect.
"Put
an end to unproductive rhetoric and substitute meaningful and civil dialogue,"
he wrote in a 24-page report.
"See
the best in each other, not the worst. Give enthusiastic recognition to
achievement, not cynicism."
And
in a broader plea, he asked Middletown's 66,000 residents to show more
appreciation of administrators, board members, teachers and other staff members.
"Start
now to embrace wholeheartedly a political and philosophical commitment to the
importance, worthiness and dignity of education and educators," he said.