{"id":185573,"date":"2014-10-07T20:47:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T01:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/10\/07\/governor-corbet-r-pa-picks-fights-with-philadelphia-teachers-to-bolster-flagging-campaign\/"},"modified":"2014-10-07T20:47:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T01:47:00","slug":"governor-corbet-r-pa-picks-fights-with-philadelphia-teachers-to-bolster-flagging-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/10\/07\/governor-corbet-r-pa-picks-fights-with-philadelphia-teachers-to-bolster-flagging-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor Corbet (R-PA) Picks Fights with Philadelphia Teachers to Bolster Flagging Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
So, surprise, his evil minions on the Philadelphia School Reform Commission picked a fight with the teachers’ union by unilaterally abrogating their contract<\/a>:<\/div>\n

In a stunning move that could reshape the face of city schools, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Monday to unilaterally cancel its teachers\u2019 contract. The vote was unanimous.<\/span>

<\/span>The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was given no advance word of the action \u2014 which happened at an early-morning SRC meeting called with minimal notice \u2014 and which figures to result in a legal challenge to the takeover law the SRC believes gives it the power to bypass negotiations and impose terms.<\/span>

<\/span>Jerry Jordan, PFT president, called the move “cowardly” and vowed to fight it strongly.<\/span>

<\/span>“I am taking nothing off the table,” a clearly angry Jordan said at an afternoon news conference. Job actions could be possible, once he determines what members want to do. “We are not indentured servants.”<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>Whether the state takeover law, known as Act 46, actually gives the SRC the power to cancel union contracts remains to be seen.<\/span>

<\/span>The SRC has imposed some work rules on the teachers\u2019 union the past year, but has always bargained contracts since its creation in 2001.<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cUnbelievable!\u201d Ted Kirsch, president of the statewide AFT-PA and a former longtime president of the PFT, said Monday morning when he learned of the SRC\u2019s action.<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cThey have mismanaged this system and now they\u2019re following along with Corbett\u2019s plan – it\u2019s the teachers\u2019 fault.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Will Bunch, aka Attytood, responds in an analysis aptly titled, “A heartbreaking act of staggering cowardice<\/a>,” and even by the standard of Pennsylvania politics, this is completely classless:<\/p>\n

See this picture? This is what raw cowardice and utter contempt for democracy looks like.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moments before meeting begins, crowd is mainly district staffers and journalists. pic.twitter.com\/bx7TMw8jUW<\/a><\/span>
\u2014 Kevin McCorry (@byKevinMcCorry) October 6, 2014<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span>
<\/span>The picture was taken Monday morning and posted on Twitter by Kevin McCorry of WHYY’s Newsworks just before 9:30 a.m., at the Philadelphia School District headquarters building at 440 North Broad Street.<\/span>

<\/span>In a matter of seconds — in a meeting that would last all of 17 minutes, and with one hasty comment from the public — the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, the state agency that has presided over 14 years of ruination of public education here, is about to explode a political bombshell. The SRC is about to revoke its contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and cut the teachers’ benefits — and it’s about to do it before this nearly empty room.<\/span>

<\/span>This is no accident. The lack of a crowd, and the lack of public debate, was an act of careful calculation. The calculation of cowards.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The meeting was called on short notice, and not announced on their web site.<\/p>\n

Instead, it was printed in small print in the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i> classified the day before.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is this particularly astute bit of political analysis:<\/p>\n

The contract stalemate between the SRC and the PFT has been going on for 21 months, so why take this vote in such a rash and arrogant fashion on this particular morning, October 6, 2014? Could it be because it’s exactly 29 days before Pennsylvania votes on whether to keep Gov. Corbett — who appointed the majority on the five-member SRC — or ditch him for Democrat Tom Wolf. <\/p>\n

Do you remember that it was just last year that a Republican firm took a secret poll and used the report to urge Gov. Corbett that there was only one way that the foundering, unpopular governor could restore his image on education issues: To confront the Philadelphia teachers union<\/a>. Now, with Corbett in the political fight of his life and losing badly, the school commission led by the governor’s appointees is starting a fight with the Philadelphia teachers’ union. <\/p>\n

What a remarkable coincidence! <\/p>\n

Look, I know what you’re thinking — Corbett is getting clobbered so badly in the polls that what does it matter at this point. I agree — but why do NFL teams keep lobbing Hail Mary passes when they’re losing by five touchdowns? Maybe Corbett figures a tough stance will appeal to suburban voters (although most of them are too freaked out by their own sky-high property taxes to notice). Maybe he’s desperate for the chaos of a teacher’s strike, which would violate a 1992 state law. Here’s a prominent Philadelphia Republican<\/a> (yes, that’s a thing, apparently) who came out practically minutes after the SRC vote saying that a) he hates (yes, hates) the union but b) pleads with them to strike. Another coincidence? A strike (which I seriously doubt will happen — look for this to be fought in court) would be devastating to tens of thousands of schoolchildren. But, hey, politics ain’t beanbag.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Corbett hopes to pick up votes by running against Philadelphia, which is, of course a dog whistle for running against people with a high amount of melanin, and the children be damned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, surprise, his evil minions on the Philadelphia School Reform Commission picked a fight with the teachers’ union by unilaterally abrogating their contract: In a stunning move that could reshape the face of city schools, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Monday to unilaterally cancel its teachers\u2019 contract. The vote was unanimous.The Philadelphia Federation of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,968,1000,969,1023,978,1022],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-education","category-elections","category-evil","category-labor","category-politics","category-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}