WyBlog

NJ added 1200 new teachers to the payroll last year

Your job is probably in jeopardy. Companies are imposing layoffs, furloughs, and salary reductions. We have to work harder just to make ends meet. The only growth industry in New Jersey is government.

And one branch of government that is growing by leaps and bounds is our unionized public schools. They added 1200 more employees last year, at a cost of more than $400 million. There are now 143,733 public school teachers working in New Jersey with a combined payroll in excess of $9.6 billion.

That is a mind-boggling number of teachers. It's no wonder the NJEA carries so much clout with state government. A voting bloc of that size is a force to be reckoned with, that's for sure. To put the number in perspective, Microsoft has only 55,843 employees in the entire United States, and their worldwide workforce tops out at a mere 92,736. Due to the economic downturn Microsoft cut 5,000 employees last year.

Reducing headcount is anathema to the NJEA. So in the midst of the deepest and most prolonged recession in memory they are merrily hiring new teachers and picking our pockets to fund them. Local school boards have a virtual license to steal from the taxpayers and they never fail to ratchet up the property tax bill each year.

If we ran our schools like a business there would, at a minimum, be a hiring freeze in effect right now. The existing employees will just have to soldier on and pick up the slack. That's what for-profit companies do when times are tough. We work harder; we put in more hours; we know our livelyhood depends on shared sacrifice. A typical teacher's idea of "sacrifice" is staying 15 minutes after school ends (but never more than once a week).

There should be a salary freeze too; no more of these automatic 4 and 5 percent annual raises come Hell or high water. We just need a governor who will stand up to the never-ending rapacity of the NJEA. What are they gonna do, quit? It's not like Microsoft is hiring! Go on strike? I dare them to; and then our hypothetical governor with balls of steel can go on TV and remind them of three magical words — "Air", "Traffic", "Controllers".

I'm sure we could find more than a few laid-off New Jersey residents to step up and take their places, probably for a lot less money.

Posted at 10:17 by Chris Wysocki   [/rants]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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