(Thanos Snap) We Just Lost Spring Break and 2% of Our Annual Pay

Ladies and Gentleman:

The fight to maintain our Spring Break is over.

We lost.


Word came down through the UFT this evening: The rumors are true. We are being compelled to work through Spring Break.  And it's not the DoE or Trump who is making us. It is everybody's hero, Andrew Cuomo. He and he alone has done this.


I once wrote that Andrew Cuomo was proof of why teachers need a strong union to protect them. And while, I have to admit I have been impressed with the job Cuomo's has done as much as anyone, the simple truth is once a Cuomo, always a Cuomo. This decision means an effective reduction of 2% in our for this year. He just erased our raises.

And I realize he is a man on a mission. And I understand that mission is my mission. But having us teach through that week as we support parents and students through this is free labor. No one else in society right now is being asked to perform free labor.

And, I have to be honest, I don't mind doing my small part here.  I know! I know! I realize it sounds corny and I know my audience here! But bare with me here ....

...  I just don't feel like I mind doing my part to help all of the parents and children I teach through this....


So if that means I teach (or virtual teach or whatever they call this) during this break, then OK. I'll roll with it. I've dealt with/lived through Giuliani and Bloomberg and Klein and the meltdown and more asinine building administrators than I can possibly count. . I'll deal with this too. I'll work through that break (it's actually only 4/13 - 4/17. We still have April 8th and April 9th off). And I'll represent my school my city and my profession well.
 
But that five days is still worth 2% of my annual pay.  Yours too. That contract is still property. Yours too. And Andrew "Thanos" Cuomo is going to have to work that 2% out somewhere down the line when this crisis has ended. No other profession in the United States would simply sit by and allow 2% of yearly salary to be taken from us by one man. And I want that 2% pay.




Quick Post Script

I have to add ...  if his father had done this to me this, I would not have minded at all! In fact, I may have been fine with it!! When I once wrote (about his father) that" I was a poor twelve year old boy who had been left behind ... when Mario Cuomo spoke at the 1984 Democratic National Convention" What I meant to convey was that that guy inspired me!

This one? meh. Andrew Cuomo is a bully. But he has a point. I want my 2% but readers of this blog know that I grew up a poor kid who now gets to teach Title I children (who are amazing) and I just don't want to leave them behind now. And so  Mr. Cuomo ... I'm in.

But you're holding that paper, sir.