I hate teacher’s unions. They are anti-children, and pro bad-teachers!
A teacher’s union in Michigan is fighting to get a $10,000 severance package for a convicted child molester whose case that drew outrage earlier this year when his former school colleagues pleaded with a judge to sentence him lightly.
Neal Erickson, 38, pleaded guilty in May to raping a young boy over the course of three years — from 2006 to 2009 — and was sentenced to 15-30 years in prison. The prison term came over the pleas of seven of Erickson’s former fellow teachers at Rose City Middle School, including Sally Campbell, who said in a letter to the judge that “Neal made a mistake. He allowed a mutual friendship to develop into much more.”
So not only are they seeking to get this monster PAID, but fellow teachers are DEFENDING him??? When I was a senior in High School I had a rookie teacher teach a class. Let’s be optimistic and say she was 21 and I was 18. That’s not unreasonable for dating…tho honestly I think of how different I was from my senior year of High School to my Senior year of college, and yeah, its gross! But even then, a teacher and student should NEVER be engaging in a sexual relationship, even at that close and legally consenting age gap!
But this isn’t that case, the victim is younger than 18 and even at the earliest the teacher was over 30! Not only should the union and administration be throwing this beast under the bus, but they should be cleaning the roster of all of the teachers who somehow think this is acceptable behavior!
And they would…if they gave the least bit of a shit about students!
That “teacher” needs to be taken out on the playground and set on fire, and every one of his “supporters” who recieves a public paycheck needs to be sacked.
Sorry Weer’d, a great rant wasted on this one I’m afraid.
If you read the whole story, the teacher Erickson applied for an early retirement buy out offered by the school district last year. His offer was accepted, but subsequent to his finishing his last year of employment, he was arrested and convicted for his crimes. Under the law, his union is obligated to represent his legitimate contractual interests with his (now former) employer – in this case, over the 10 grand the school district is trying to welsh on paying as previously agreed. If the union didn’t push this claim they would be liable for a claim of negligence and breach of contract with Erickson (and by extension with all the other members of the local). Essentially, the union officials have to send this claim to arbitration or risk civil and criminal penalties themselves.
As a shop steward in the third oldest profession, let me offer an analogy from the second oldest profession (the first being the hookers we represent and they prosecute and defend); just because your client turns out to be guilty doesn’t mean he doesn’t have rights. The union has to represent the employment contractual interests of all of its members – even the despicable, asshole members.
Will- Which just goes to show that the unions should have clauses to revoke membership upon conviction of certain crimes.
Formynder – my personal experience of unions is limited to only two examples, but my understanding is that members have to be employed by a specified employer to become/remain members. That being true, conviction that results in not being able to remain employed would result in cancellation/revocation of membership. None of which has anything to do with representation for matters that occurred prior to that revocation event, which is what I pointed out above.
Also, unions are very proud of their basic democratic format – offices are elective and rules are by direct vote of the membership. Join a union and see how your proposal goes. Again, in my limited experience, it won’t get much (I’m being polite – you probably won’t get death threats. Probably) traction and the rest of the membership may well vote something extraordinarily stupid in reaction – which has the benefit of keeping the union officers scrambling to retain what little credibility they still have with management.
My issue with how this event is being portrayed is limited to the fact that the union has no choice but to pursue the grievance to arbitration without risking civil and criminal penalties themselves (the individual union officials and the organization itself). Whether or not Erickson is a member now or not is really immaterial; he was a member then, and under the contract terms in effect then he is entitled to whatever the contract terms stipulate (in this case, a cash contract buy out arguably). We’ll see what the arbitrator rules, probably about this time next year so Weer’d can at least look forward to recycling this post then. 🙂
Thanks for the information I missed on the early retirement. (Also Early Retirement at 38? I smell funnybuisness there, I’ll be 38 in a few years, and I would LOVE me a “Golden Parachute”…it isn’t going to happen…unless I’m in a Union and I’m an employee who would otherwise be fired or drummed down to insulting job positions and duties if I were at-will)
Contracts are contracts, and I will add here that my distaste of Unions does no begrudge the good people who are grabbing a too-good-to-be true job. If they’re willing to give you a sweet contract you’d be an idiot NOT to take it….I’d just prefer these contracts not be given on the public dime.
Still, the quotes for him fellow teachers are still despicable, even with all the contractual stuff brought to light, and they still are people who should not be around children without supervision!
I wonder if something was lost in translation. It might not be early retirement, but some sort of “early vesting”. When I was employed in aerospace it took ten years at the company for the non-contributory pension to vest, that is, when age plus employment equaled 75 you could start collecting the pension. Perhaps the district has some provision to “buy in” the pension, so that for a payment of money your pension would vest at 9 or 8 years instead. If this guy had an idea he was going to be caught for his crimes, he might have wanted to have his pension vest sooner since he rightly would not be working as a teacher ever again, and with such a felony on his record, who knows when he might be in any position to earn towards a pension again.
Yes, his just punishment would involve some slow burning at the stake or measured evisceration and dissection with all his fellow teachers in attendance, but there is the Eighth Amendment to consider.
These were the same MI teachers and MI Union that stood up for the pervert in court after he was convicted, and said what a great guy he was, and that he should not go to jail. That it was a tragic misunderstanding and that he did not really mean to repeatedly rape the poor student for 3 years. After all, it could happen to anyone, a 38 yo man mistaking a 12 yo boy for a willing sex partner.
And then someone (one of the teacher’s supporters?) set fire to the garage of the parents of the sexually abused child last summer. Nothing like a random act of terrorism to make the child feel safe.