Reader’s Write: Letter-writer union claims untrue

The Island Now

In response to Dr. Stephen Morris’s letter of April 12 under the headline “Teachers unions are no friend of taxpayers”:

While I’m certain that this was not intentional, Dr. Morris’s letter contains some misleading statements. To clarify, when he speaks of “the union,” he is referencing in many cases either the New York State United Teachers, which is the state umbrella organization, and in others the United Federation of Teachers, which represents New York City teachers and has nothing to do with the teachers’ local unions on Long Island.

The statements that Dr. Morris makes that do appear to pertain to local unions are largely inaccurate.

We do not “protect incompetent teachers by refusing to examine and publicize teacher evaluations.”

Under current state law (not a locally negotiated agreement), our final evaluation scores are available to the parents of children in our classes.

His statement that we are “acting unprofessionally and not recognizing that some of [our] previously negotiated labor contracts containing unsustainable health-care, retirement and cost of living packages are just not sustainable in today’s economy” is simply not true.

As part of our last contract, we agreed to a 5 percent increase in our health-insurance contribution, and we accepted a pay freeze in the first year of our contract (the second in three years) and an increase below the cost-of-living increase for the remaining term of the contract.

We do not negotiate retirement benefits (nor does NYSUT): those are determined by the state Legislature, which is why public employees’ pension formulas have undergone two drastic revisions in the last three years.

Finally, it is inaccurate to say that our “main responsibility is to negotiate the best contracts for [our] members.”

While it is certainly A responsibility, our main responsibility is to ensure that our members have a strong voice in all matters pertaining to our profession, and we take that responsibility extremely seriously.

I am certain that our board of education and our administration would completely agree that the Great Neck Teachers Association works as partners with them to ensure that we continue to provide the outstanding education that is a hallmark of Great Neck.

One final point: the vast majority of our teachers live on Long Island. We, like Dr. Morris, are among the taxpayers.

Sheila Scimone, President

Great Neck Teachers Association

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