EARTH SHATTERING NEWS ALERT: Teachers' Union Busting in Philly

[A Simple Game]

58. I was referring to the former contract(s) when the benefits in question were negotiated.

Rereading my post I see I didn't make that clear. What I meant was the city shouldn't have let it get this bad. They should have been harder in their previous contract negotiations. But I still know one thing, if you are foolish enough to offer it the union would be fools not to take it.

But yes the contract ran out last summer which should leave the former contract in place until a new one is signed or the union is disbanded or management cancels the contract. I haven't kept up on this stuff so things may have changed in the last few years.

But this appears to be obvious union busting on the part of the City. Teachers unions seem to be targets for many municipalities lately and the City seems to be trying to gain the most cuts from them. Concessions should have been sought in each of the last few contracts if it was known there were going to be future problems and let's face it, if the City didn't know there were going to be future problems at least 10 years ago they weren't doing their jobs. Anyone that didn't see what was happening with medical costs and still negotiated these costs out for over 5 years is a fool and had to have had their heads in a dark hole. Only a lazy negotiator would even offer anything as a pay it forward option.

But Philly is not the only one getting into trouble with the pay it forward contracts, it's happening everywhere. We are seeing the same problem in my area with teachers, county workers, town and village workers, etc. It boils down to lazy negotiators passing the buck down to the future negotiators which leave the future negotiators with a rock and a hard place to negotiate from.