A New York City teacher has set up a blog and livestream to document the day-to-day of his $75,000-a-year job at a Staten Island middle school. If that sounds mundane, that’s exactly the point: he claims he’s being paid not to teach.
It’s been more than two years since New York shuttered its infamous “rubber rooms” – where teachers who couldn’t be fired due to union rules killed time on the taxpayers’ dime. But Intermediate School 49 teacher Francesco Portelos says he hasn’t set foot in a classroom in about half a year, but continues to draw a full salary.
Portelos has created a website to document his allegations, along with a livestream broadcasting his time spent out of the classroom. He spends his days in “a conference room with a table and chairs and filing cabinets. That’s it. I’m not given any work. It feels like I’m a rat in a cage.”
“I want people to see where their tax dollars are going,” Portelos told the New York Daily News. “I’m getting paid $75,000 to sit around.”
Portelos alleges that he was removed from the classroom after he blew the whistle on financial misconduct by school administrators. The school says he was “extremely difficult to work with” and that there are “multiple investigations pending against him.”
But whether or not Portelos was exposed wrongdoing or was guilty of it himself, he appears to have adequately documented the continued use of practices to which New York City officials say they put a stop.
Indeed, Portelos’s website has become something of a clearinghouse for “rubber room” allegations. One blog post compiled a list of such rooms supposedly scattered throughout the city.
This is one of the challenges of union rules. Moreover, it enforces my belief that employees working for government should not be allowed to form unions. They work at the pleasure of the taxpayers and while they have every right to demand reasonable pay and work conditions, unions have become, thanks to incompetent negotiations by politicians that don't mind spending other peoples money, immoral burdens on our citizens.
This information was put out at fox over a year ago,i think John S. brought it to light,how do they continue to get away with this corrupt policy,is no one paying attention?? It really needs attention,speak up America its going on in other places also in so many ways.
Even now it will probably die out when nothing was solved.
I just can't believe this! It's like the democrat unions are covering people in result to narrow their minds ability. Like it's said, democrats attack people with principle, dignity and morality with punishment if they can.
Thank you for bringing this to light, Mr.Portelos!
Unions in government fields are only corrupting America and abusing their members. Oh, with democratic backing.
Unions would rightly object if management replaced union leadership with people openly supporting the company. It would effectively be the management negotiating with management.
It is no different when elected officials, beholden to the union, are negotiating government contracts. You have the union negotiating with the union and nobody representing the taxpayers (AKA management).
It is why public sector union contracts have become unsustainably generous.