Contract is a giveaway to teachers

Would you like to go to a job that guarantees you a raise every year as long as you work there?

Not even our U.S. Congress has passed a law guaranteeing themselves a raise every year (even though they consider doing so from time to time).

Ah, but guaranteed raises forever are in this proposed teachers contract for the Monadnock Regional School District.

Called "evergreen" in the contract, the proposed teacher's contract guarantees a raise for every teacher every year until they retire.

A teacher receives either a step raise (first 10 years), or a longevity raise (anything greater than 10 years of service).

In past teacher contracts, these raises stopped when the contract expired: no contract, no raise.

Ask yourselves why would the teachers negotiate anything after they receive a contract with raises for every member forever?

By the way, article 4 may not be clear: The first year of longevity raise is not $63,000 it is really $100,000 and the difference will be made up by skimming something else in the budget.

Longevity raise does not go to zero in year two, it will remain $100,000; year three, it will not be $50,000, it will be $150,000; year four, it will not be $50,000, it will be $200,000.

How we got into this situation of only showing the increase is beyond me, nevertheless, longevity costs that look like $163,000 in the contract text will cost the district $550,000.

The same is true of raises: It is only showing the increase over the prior year. And it gets worse.

Early retirement is continued in this contract, paid by the local taxpayer (not the state) through 2015. Does anyone know who these 12 greedy teachers (of about 200 within the district) are that are being given early retirement for $1 million - putting raises for other teachers in jeopardy?

Furthermore, it guarantees that existing early retirement is legal, although there are many that feel that the existing early retirement is not legal. The town of Sullivan has sued the district on the lack of disclosure of early retirement.

Because our teachers' union refused to let the district change health insurance carriers in 2007-08, taxpayers paid out an extra $850,000 for employee health insurance.

No change in wording on health insurance carriers is in this teachers' contract, therefore, the teachers' union still picks the carrier for all employees in the Monadnock district and School Administrative Unit 38. So we are out another $850,000 in savings for 2008-09.

I am as pro labor as anyone in this area. I am a past president of Local 1871 (over 2000 members strong) International Association of Machinists.

There is no question our teachers deserve a raise. Furthermore, it's fair to take steps in the contract to get them back up to scale for the years without a contract and pay for their contribution to health-care insurance.

However, our teachers do not deserve early retirement paid to another 12 teachers who are not even in the classroom at a cost of $1 million.

Our teachers do not deserve to select the heath insurance carrier for our district, costing the Monadnock taxpayers $850,000 every year, $3.4 million for the contract length.

Our teachers do not deserve a guaranteed raise every year until they retire. Your Monadnock budget committee has taken the position that the teacher's contract is acceptable. As you can see, I don't agree.