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Comment by gmu3 | Hacker News Reader

The union contracts are really out of control. For those that aren't aware, research "rubber rooms". Hundreds of teachers in NYC are literally paid to come and sit in empty rooms and do nothing while they wait years to be reviewed because the districts don't have the ability to fire teachers.

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As a European I wouldn't blame the unions there; the right to an arbitration hearing when you're accused of misconduct does not seem unreasonable. What else would you do, allow anyone to just be fired on the principal's say-so?

The real problem seems to be that the arbitration proceedings in NYC take years - partly because NYC isn't paying the arbitrators (in contrast to the union, which is paying its half of the arbitrator wages). How is that the union's fault?

What else would you do, allow anyone to just be fired on the principal's say-so?

This is the way just about every other profession in the US works.

My manager doesn't need to prove anything to anyone to dismiss me.

I'm not sure holding up any other profession, much less "just about every other profession" as a model of how we should organize our employer/employee relationships is a good idea.

The kind of relationship you describe has created a general environment in which wages are depressed and working conditions continue to deteriorate. Every time unions lose power, workers' working conditions--including compensation and intangibles--deteriorate.

Most professionals -- which teachers desire to be treated like -- have done quite well over the past 34 years despite fewer and fewer organizational defenses of their conditions. Unskilled labor is another story.

Unless teachers should be treated and protected like factory workers. Usually teachers object to that characterization, but if you want to argue for it, okay.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professions

[2] I'm assuming you are using Reagan's election as the start date of the professional malaise. Call it a lucky guess.

> What else would you do, allow anyone to just be fired on the principal's say-so?

Yes. Why shouldn't the head of a school have the authority to fire the school's employees? If he misuses his authority, fire him.

As a teacher joining the school, how can you know whether the principal is a power-tripper? Sure, maybe the district would catch it eventually, but that's no good if he fires you in the meantime. So why would you ever take a job where you can be fired just like that? It's not going to be easy to get another job when your CV says you were fired for misconduct from your last one.

(That goes for any profession - I don't see why anyone would work under "at-will employment" laws, particularly in the US where you can choose to work in a state that doesn't have those laws)

I would rather work in an at-will state than elsewhere because I prefer to work with colleagues who pursue excellence rather than mediocrity, and because I have faith in my abilities.

There are two types of people in the world: those who see themselves as perpetual victims, passively experiencing the actions of others; and those who see themselves as protagonists. The former want things like work councils, unions, arbitration boards and so forth, because they believe in conspiracies and cabals &c.; the latter prefer freedom, because they have faith in their ability to succeed in a free environment.

There are no states in the U.S. that are not at-will states. When people make a differentiation between states based on some at-will status, it's usually based on the number of exceptions a state recognizes, none of which are based on work councils, unions, or arbitration. In most cases, these are protections like: - you can't be fired for refusing to break the law - you have an implied contract (good luck proving that) - you can't be fired in bad faith or with malicious intent

The last of those is considered the most broad exception, and is the least common. You want to work in a state with none of these exceptions? You're looking at Georgia and Florida. The longest period of time I spent in Florida was in a union shop.

The largest exception to at-will employment in the U.S. is civil service workers, the second largest is non-unionized private sector workers with contractual exceptions.

Whether working in a union or without a union, I've found that there are always people that work, and people that work the system.

I received better wages and better job security as a non-union worker, but that may not be the case for others. I receive better benefits as a union worker (eventually the job security would come, but I have yet to see a union in which anything other than seniority improves job security).

The only place I've ever seen freedom come into it is in how the law limits your ability to defend your professional reputation if you encounter a malicious or incompetent manager. Thankfully, I've never needed to test that.

This is an oft-cited phenomenon, but it should be noted that this policy started to be dismantled 4 years ago [1].

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16rubber.html

Only after it became oft-cited.

I'm not in disagreement at all. This is a valuable purpose of the press.

> it should be noted that this policy started to be dismantled 4 years ago

Sure, if by started to be dismantled you mean "was completely unchanged other than they stopped assigning the thumb-twiddling teachers to big rooms/facilities (too visible a target to critics) in favor of assigning them to smaller spaces - spare cubes, broom closets, locker rooms, conference rooms - more widely distributed around the city and hence harder to count."

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/city-schools-r...

http://nypost.com/2011/01/03/rubber-room-blues/

I'll refrain from pointing out the strong political biases your sources because I did cite the NYT, but I wish to note their use of tone arguments to highlight waste. $22M a year spent on teachers awaiting arbitration sure sounds like a lot as a number out of context. Take a minute to note that they have close to a $20B[1] yearly operating budget, putting the cost at roughly 0.11% of their spending.

I don't wish to make the argument that this makes the spending or this practice ideal, but rather than in scale of the NYC DOE it does not appear to be as large of a leakage as the press might like to make it seem.

[1] http://schools.nyc.gov/Aboutus/Funding/overview/default.htm

The other way to figure it is that ~220 out of 75k teachers affected suggests a waste factor of 0.3%. (which agrees with your number if teacher salaries are about 1/3rd of the operating budget.) It's still substantial because in absolute terms $22M is a lot of money and it's all waste - the only sane policy would be to just fire these people or put them on unpaid suspension.

Nonetheless if we are to believe the official figures, they claim the number of rubber-roomers has declined from ~700 to ~200. Which isn't "dismantled" but is certainly "reduced"; it does seem like some progress is being made.

That's just a symptom.

The alternative widely prescribed is to move towards quasi-private charter schools. These schools attract enrollment mostly because of their 7-5 school day, which eliminates daycare expense and hassle for many parents.

Educational outcomes vary.

The thing that doesn't vary is that the bondholders who fund the school buildings, etc tend to be protected. So if the charter school flops, you're stuck with it.

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