Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Teachers - Welcome to MY World

There's an article in the Providence Journal about the RI Superintendent of Schools will send out termination notices to ALL teachers. The reason is to give the board maximum flexibility in resolving a budget deficit. The union, of course, is up in arms.

Well, welcome to the real world. When I worked for a major oil company we would undergo some sort of re-organization about every 18 months. At each re-organization, your job was in jeopardy. You had to qualify for your new position - if you had one. In some cases management would call everyone together and announce that nobody was guaranteed a position. In one case, we were told to sit in our offices and wait for someone to offer us a job. If nobody came, that was the sign that you were now unemployed.

Our operations people were union and seniority rules came into play if there were layoffs. I watched the young, smart guys who were up on new technology laid off because of seniority of older guys who were entrenched in the system.

So I have no sympathy for these teachers who think they are owed a job. They have needed a good shaking up for a long time.

2 comments:

Clay said...

Can they get oil industry paychecks, then? The oil biz pays higher, on average, than just about any other industry for a given job.

My mom is a public school teacher (not in Orleans Parish). Anyone who thinks they're overpaid is crazy.

The oil biz isn't exactly a model in H.R., either. I was talking with my wife, who's 3rd generation oil, about how there's NOBODY our age who's followed their parents footsteps into the oil biz. With all the ridiculousness of the 80's, oil workers told their kids NOT to go into the business, the industry didn't hire young people, and now it's one of the most gray-haired industries in the country.

Peripatetic Engineer said...

I'm not saying that teachers don't deserve higher pay. But the collective bargaining agreement in Wisconsin isn't just about pay. And when 1/3 of WI 8th graders can't read, who is to blame? What's wrong with teacher evaluations and pay for performance? Every year you get an evaluation and a pay raise (or not) based on your performance. Why are teachers exempted?


And I lived, and survived, the 80s. Everyone in my department was ranked and lowest ranked were let go. It was a brutal period. But that is what industry had to do. Public employees are about to see the same.