Earlier this week, I responded to an ad in the newspaper seeking a soccer instructor for ages 4-7 for Elyria's late winter soccer program. As a coach with 7 years experience and my NSCAA State & Advanced Regional diplomas, I got an application and sent it in.
Before I even had a chance to follow up, I read this article covering Thursday night's city council meeting, which stated that "every part-time Parks staff member would be laid off — a total of 250 employees — for a total savings of about $500,000."
I realized that this probably meant the instructors, so I called the department and my fears were confirmed. The program was going to be cancelled, and the entire department was pretty much being shut down.
This is very discouraging, as my kids have been involved in many different sports through the parks and recreation department over the years, including basketball, volleyball, swimming, and tee-ball.
I asked my contact at the department why this was happening, because it seems to me that if the soccer program had 30 kids paying $30 each, the $900 collected would more than pay for the instructor and the utility bills for the recreation center. He replied that it had to do with "union rules."
Sure enough, there was another article in today's paper, describing that the city could not cut union jobs or union pay, unless all part-timers were let go first: "The union contracts require part-timers to be cut first, which means the Parks and Recreation Department, which relies most heavily on its part-time staff, would be unable to open a single recreation center or operate any of its hugely popular sports programs. "
The most frustrating thing, again, is that many of these parks and recreation department programs would seem to pay for themselves. But by not hiring any skilled part-time instructors or referees to help run the programs, they cannot occur.
Can the union workers run the same programs with the same success? Possibly, but I'm guessing it won't happen because they don't have the specific knowledge or skills to run the sports programs.
It seems like the union jobs are being protected, at the cost of shutting down the parks and recreatioin department, which provides very important positive activities for the children of our community.
2 comments:
That is very sad. I will definately keep this in my prayers. Our kids deserve so much more than these crazy adults and unions fighting over power and prestige. Just another example of letting God have controle of things in this world. Man will always try, but God will always win. God bless you, and thanks for stopping by the blog, I am glad it blessed you. Robin
Unions are destroying this country. There was a time when they may have been a necessary evil, but those days are over.
I am an ex-union worker and through my experience in the union productivity was not rewarded and certainly frowned upon by other co-workers.
There was never any consequences for a shoddy performance, either.
I'm utterly saddened at how this will effect our children and their development of personal potential. We must take action somehow.
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