Union Concessions?

Posted by the editor for Kenneth Hjulstrom

Originally the Board of Finance had asked the Board of Education to reduce its budget by $350,000 and the Board of Education indicated that such a reduction would cause them to reduce teaching staff in the upper grades and to increase class sizes.  This drew a lot of attention from parents and the eventual compromise at a $256,000 reduction avoided that. Now that the budget failed I am hearing a lot of taxpayers bringing up the issue again and saying that perhaps the issue of potential teacher layoffs should be revisited. In addition, there was a half hearted attempt to request union employees teachers, public works employees and town hall staff to accept a voluntary pay freeze for a year. That was rebuffed by the union employees.  That is another area people have brought up saying that those in the private sector have had layoffs, wage freezes and reductions in hours, so why don’t the teachers and other town union employees share some of the pain in order to keep their jobs. I recall back in the 1980s when my employer indtituted a delay for raises when times were tough and we had to accept it, but were happy to do so to avoid layoffs.