Anche in Usa gli stipendi degli insegnanti nelle scuole pubbliche sono pił elevati rispetto alle scuole private. Alla faccia della concorrenza!
More than 250
teachers at nine high schools run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese
of New York struck for a second day yesterday in disagreements over
pensions and pay, forcing one school to close, six to release
students as early as the lunch hour, and two to cut their daily
attendance by half.
At most of the schools that opened, priests, nuns, other clergy members and lay administrators stepped in to teach classes or supervise the students. At Cathedral High in Manhattan, students followed their regular schedules without much teacher supervision, as they did on Thursday. Occasionally, they stuck their heads out of the windows and waved at their teachers outside the school. Teachers at a 10th school, Our Lady of Lourdes High School in Poughkeepsie, who belong to the same union but stopped participating in union activities in September, did not join the strike yesterday or Thursday. Union leaders at first listed Our Lady of Lourdes teachers as among the strikers. Some parents are growing impatient. "I really don't like the strike," said Josie Onsueng, the mother of Christine, a 10th grader at Cathedral High. "What the teachers are asking for is fine, but I want this to be resolved quickly. I want my daughter to go back to school." Both sides in the talks said pensions were the main stumbling block to a settlement. Teachers receive pension benefits of roughly $12,000 a year from the archdiocese after working for 20 years, according to the striking teachers. The union, the Lay Faculty Association, would like to join a second pension plan administered through the A.F.L.-C.I.O., its parent organization. The union said payments would be taken directly from teachers' paychecks without any matching funds from the archdiocese. This plan would eventually pay members roughly another $13,000 annually, a union lawyer said. But archdiocesan officials remain opposed because, they said, the archdiocese will eventually be liable for any obligations the plan incurred. "The archdiocese will have legal liabilities in the future," said Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the archdiocese. "The archdiocese will be the one legally making the contributions to the pension plan. No employer gives two pensions to its employees." He argued that the teachers could join the plan as individuals if they chose, but an A.F.L.-C.I.O. official said that only unions, not individuals, could participate. Mr. Zwilling added, "Our bottom line is, if they do not drop the second pension request, we will not consider further negotiations." The union's leader, Henry Kielkucki, said the teachers would continue the strike unless their pension request was met. And other union officials agreed. "The pension plan doesn't cost them a penny," said Vinny Doyle, the union representative at Cathedral High School. High school teachers in the archdiocese earn $29,893 to $41,745 a year, depending on experience. In comparison, salaries for New York City public school teachers in all grade levels range from $31,910 to $70,000. Many Catholic school teachers say they take two or three jobs to make ends meet. The union has requested a raise of 15 percent over three years, and the archdiocese has offered 8 percent. The union is receptive to 8 percent but is resisting the formula for dividing the raises over the three years. Left by the archdiocese to decide on their individual courses of action, and with most of their teachers on strike, the high schools chose different strategies to cope. Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx was closed for the entire day. Cathedral High, Monsignor Farrell High School in Staten Island, Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers and Maria Regina High School in Hartsdale released students after noon. Moore Catholic High School in Staten Island let students go at 2 p.m. Hours were normal at John S. Burke Catholic High School in Goshen and Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains. Kennedy High decided to divide its students into two attendance shifts. Yesterday, only freshmen and juniors had classes, and on Monday, it will be the sophomores' and seniors' turn. Stepinac High devised a similar plan, and freshmen and sophomores were at school yesterday. The previous contract of the Lay Faculty Association expired on Aug. 31. The union members began to strike on the morning of Sept. 11, but the action was cut short by the attack on the World Trade Center. Representatives of both sides have met eight times since September, but the negotiations broke down on Tuesday.
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