Northjersey.com  Home : News : Opinion/Letters : Editorials

Tightening our belts

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Suburban Trends

Bergenfield’s education association, aka the local teachers’ union, has joined the ranks of government workers who just don’t get it. In the Suburban Trends area there’s also an ongoing tussle with the West Milford Education Association over a new contract.

Perhaps association members should just read the comments to the Bergenfield story posted on northjersey.com where taxpayers fed up with rapidly escalating property taxes are by and large commenting that they’ve had enough. We understand. In fact in this space over the last half dozen years or so, we’ve cautioned members of the New Jersey Education Association, the parent organization of the various teachers’ unions, that they are in danger of losing their good name. While it hasn’t happened as of yet (recently we sent a roving photographer out to sample views and people were still squarely in their corner), as bad times continue and property taxes rise faster than the rate of inflation, people sooner or later will figure out the primary causes driving property taxes higher and higher, and that’s new contracts providing raises above and beyond cost-of-living increases.

What they don’t understand is that once public opinion turns, overcoming the inertia to get back in the public’s good graces takes a herculean effort. In their case, asking for 4.5-percent increase when roughly one in five working-age Americans are either unemployed and underemployed comes across as not just greedy but out of touch. Not only that but when these folks and others just barely getting by figure out that teacher contracts are generally structured by steps, many will be outraged. What this means is that in general a first-year teacher automatically receives a raise when they progress to a second step, say going to $35,000 from $33,500. The new contract adds a 4-something percent raise on top of that. If taxpayers ever get hip to that, it will probably turn more than a few heads. Call it jealously, or even a lack of understanding of just the work teachers must do, with the public’s perception it doesn’t matter. When fortune’s wheel turns, it turns and it’s hard to get back on top.

If we were members of the teachers’ union, we’d implore our leaders to take the moral high ground. Call for cost-of-living increases for the foreseeable future in the name of public responsibility.

Bergenfield’s education association, aka the local teachers’ union, has joined the ranks of government workers who just don’t get it. In the Suburban Trends area there’s also an ongoing tussle with the West Milford Education Association over a new contract.

Perhaps association members should just read the comments to the Bergenfield story posted on northjersey.com where taxpayers fed up with rapidly escalating property taxes are by and large commenting that they’ve had enough. We understand. In fact in this space over the last half dozen years or so, we’ve cautioned members of the New Jersey Education Association, the parent organization of the various teachers’ unions, that they are in danger of losing their good name. While it hasn’t happened as of yet (recently we sent a roving photographer out to sample views and people were still squarely in their corner), as bad times continue and property taxes rise faster than the rate of inflation, people sooner or later will figure out the primary causes driving property taxes higher and higher, and that’s new contracts providing raises above and beyond cost-of-living increases.

What they don’t understand is that once public opinion turns, overcoming the inertia to get back in the public’s good graces takes a herculean effort. In their case, asking for 4.5-percent increase when roughly one in five working-age Americans are either unemployed and underemployed comes across as not just greedy but out of touch. Not only that but when these folks and others just barely getting by figure out that teacher contracts are generally structured by steps, many will be outraged. What this means is that in general a first-year teacher automatically receives a raise when they progress to a second step, say going to $35,000 from $33,500. The new contract adds a 4-something percent raise on top of that. If taxpayers ever get hip to that, it will probably turn more than a few heads. Call it jealously, or even a lack of understanding of just the work teachers must do, with the public’s perception it doesn’t matter. When fortune’s wheel turns, it turns and it’s hard to get back on top.

If we were members of the teachers’ union, we’d implore our leaders to take the moral high ground. Call for cost-of-living increases for the foreseeable future in the name of public responsibility.