Posts about WTU
Transit
Public unions need to stop defending the bad apples
Unsuck DC Metro uncovered some troubling facts about the way WMATA's union rules may be encouraging poor escalator performance.
Photo by @mjb on Flickr.
A "pick" system lets escalator mechanics bid on escalators to maintain, with preference by seniority. As a result, some senior mechanics may choose escalators in good working order "so they can slide and and not do anything for the six months it's under their 'care,'" as Unsuck put it. When the escalator starts having problems, they can simply pick different escalators.
This system also reduces incentives for more capable mechanics without high seniority to do a good job, since bringing an escalator up to tip top shape will only entice the more senior mechanics to bid to take it away.
Most likely only a few "bad apples" actually slack off so seriously. Most mechanics at Metro probably try to do the best job they can day after day. But at Metro, like in many public agencies, even a small minority of poor employees gives the entire agency a bad reputation, and union rules make it remarkably difficult to fire them.
Union rules also form one of the biggest obstacles, if not the biggest, to removing poorly performing project managers and engineers in DDOT's engineering department, IPMA, as I recommended. The standard way of laying off people, a Reduction In Force (RIF), requires laying off the newest employees, who are often not the ones that are most problematic.
Terminating individuals for cause takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. DDOT actually did go through some substantial staff cuts and used many tools at its disposal to target the cuts to poor employees rather than just young employees, but in a number of cases they had to take some employees back and pay them years of back salary, further draining limited budgets.
And as we all know, the WTU just elected a new president who ran on a platform of opposing the IMPACT teacher ratings and the contract provisions to fire poorly performing teachers. IMPACT might be imperfect, but overall the new contract got rid of the worst performing teachers. That's exactly what needs to happen.
Before we all go calling for the elimination of unions, let me emphasize that I believe unions have an important role. The labor market is not fair and doesn't work on its own. In most economic times, there are more people who want jobs than there are jobs, and that means the equilibrium price for labor in most industries will be the bare subsistence level. That's not good for society.
Unions like SEIU have worked hard to get health care and decent pay for workers in many fields who would otherwise be dependent on emergency room care, which is far more expensive to society. Companies have far more "market power" in the labor market than individuals do, due to the way individuals have few choices and companies can always hire someone else.
However, many unions, especially public employee unions, also fall into the unfortunate position of fighting against the firing of bad workers. This is not in the best interest of the labor movement generally, since it undermines political support for organized labor and doesn't actually improve the lot of most workers, But individual unions or workers aren't focused on that. In at least one recent case, the ATU leadership didn't want to appeal the firing of one WMATA employee whose infractions had made the press and garnered significant scorn, but the rank and file overrode the recommendation.
This is the fundamental disconnect. A union officially represents the workers, just like a lawyer represents a client, and is supposed to do everything they can for the workers. But they also have powers granted by the law, such as to collect dues from all employees, which means they enjoy privileges granted by the government. The government should only give power if it serves the public interest. Sometimes having a union does serve the public interest, but in this case of firing bad people it does not.
Is it possible to make firing poorly performing union employees easier without throwing out the whole organized labor system? The new Republican majority in the House would surely be interested in curbing some union excesses, while there are plenty of ways the law still doesn't protect employees trying to organize against retaliation. Could a deal be worked out where layoffs for performance become possible but organizing also becomes more possible?
How could such a layoff work? Off the top of my head, here are some ideas which people surely poke holes in. An agency head could create some ranking, which could include objective criteria (like IMPACT's) and some subjective criteria (like manager ratings), and announce their intention to lay off a specific number of people by taking the bottom of that ranking. However, they also have to identify an equal number from the second lowest group. In other words, if they want to lay off 10% of people by performance, they have to identify the bottom 10% and also the next lowest 10%.
The union can then challenge any of the choices, but they have to also identify which people from the second group they would remove instead, based on any other alternative but not completely arbitrary rating system. The agency can agree, or can go to arbitration to decide which.
For teachers, for example, if WTU thought IMPACT was lousy and it could come up with a better system, it could use that system to replace some of the teachers rated worst by IMPACT with some of the teachers rated not quite so bad but still not tops. Keeping everyone isn't an option, and choosing based on whim isn't either, but there's room to negotiate the criteria.
Or, perhaps there are other ways to fix this problem. Any ideas? Let's try to keep the comments from devolving into a shouting match of "Destroy all unions!" "No, keep all unions exactly the same!" Something is broken, but let's figure out how to fix that one thing instead of pushing for unrealistic and wholesale changes.
Parking
(Some) DC teachers want to vote; (some) NY teachers want to park
Teachers displeased with their union's decision not to even hold a vote on Michelle Rhee's proposed two-track contract have launched a petition. It criticizes the WTU's decision as driven by the loudest voices in the room, and calls for a secret ballot vote. Via DC Teacher Chic.
Illegal teacher parking on NYC's Upper West Side. Photo from UncivilSevants.org.
It's the season for undemocratic behavior, as Mayor Bloomberg's plan to extend his own term limits (and the City Council's) without a referendum gains a key political supporter; the Examiner's education columnist lambastes Rhee's sudden firing of a principal, Bloomberg's decision on term limits, and New York teachers union president Randi Weingarten's endorsement of Bloomberg's action.
Term limits aren't the only hot topic in New York education; things are also heating up over the Mayor's decision to drastically cut free parking permits given out to, and frequently misused by, public employees. A teacher wrote to NYC's Gridlock Sam, dismayed that his or her school's permits were dropping from 120 to 52. Sam replied:
Frankly, I don't know why the mayor allows any parking permits for teachers. We have a great transit system, and, somehow, private-sector workers, including local merchants, get to work in even the remotest locations without permits.(Some) teachers bombarded Sam with angry emails, like this one he published this morning:
I teach in a school with 100 staff members near the George Washington Bridge. About a third of our staff commutes from New Jersey and 10% commute from Connecticut, Westchester, or Long Island. We went from 50 to just 13 permits. Using public transit is extremely difficult for those having to travel long distances at a very early hour. The reduced number of permits has created a real problem.Sam responded:
Boy, did I anger a lot of teachers with my lack of sympathy for their parking permit reduction. My answer to you, Jeff, is the same I'd give to any teacher. I don't see any compelling reason to give a teacher a permit when bodega employees and office workers somehow manage to get to work all over the city with no permits. Many use transit. And in your case, several Metropolitan Transportation Authority and NJTransit buses and the A train serve the area, along with multiple opportunities for connections from other parts of the city.If only Sam were so staunchly pro-transit when it comes to Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Education
Teachers' union playing NIMBY role
The fight over Michelle Rhee's merit pay proposal has much in common with recent fights over parking reform or development on Wisconsin Avenue. We have a creative, 21st century vision for making things better, and most newer stakeholders support it. On the other hand, many people feel the old system is working well for them and resist any change. Institutions which claim to represent everyone are promoting the anti-change viewpoint to the frustration of their newer members.
The shield is an apt metaphor. Image from WTU.
Playing the analogous role to the Federation of Citizens' Associations and the Committee of 100 in education is the Washington Teachers' Union. Ryan Avent writes that many of his teacher friends ("young, talented, very good at what they do, and sick of dealing with the union") feel their union leaders aren't representing their interests.
Defenders of the status quo even take the same derogatory tone toward newer members in both areas. Marc Fisher interviews David Brocks, a 34-year DCPS veteran who keeps sneering that Rhee "just got to town" as if that makes her unqualified to fix a broken system.
The difference, of course, is that everyone agrees the school system is seriously broken. But teachers' unions have shown a disappointing resistance to changes even when they are in the clear public interest, like the NYC teachers' union defending illegal parking permits for some teachers even though most teachers don't drive to work and can't benefit.
I generally only write about unions to criticize their excesses, but I believe there is an important role for such organizations. In many fields, employers (being few) have great power over the labor market, while employees (being many) have none, and it leads to widespread abuse. But fighting tooth and nail against any intrusion of job performance into pay or promotions, for special parking privileges that harm communities, and against almost any change only reinforces public perception that unions are dinosaurs.
Teachers' unions claim that merit systems leave teachers too vulnerable to political decisions from potentially vindictive vice principals. That's probably true, though most people in most jobs are vulnerable to political decisions from potentially vindictive vice presidents. Instead of opposing everything, teachers' unions need to work with reformers to find a way to mitigate the intrusion of office politics into schools while still ensuring talented and dedicated teachers can rise to the top.
Update: DCist has more about the generational divide in the contract debate.
@ggwash
- Successful speed cameras require fair speed limits
- Amid scandal, don't lose sight of Gray's policy achievements
- Montgomery plans 160-mile, "gold standard" BRT system
- VDOT ignores own data, pushes widening I-66
- DC's parks are 5th best in the nation, says "Park Score"
- Bethesda gets new but terrible bike racks
- DC's divide need not be black and white
Greater Washington
District of Columbia
