[lbo-talk] More "school reform" nonsense

[Chris Maisano]

The issue of seniority is fairly radioactive in my Brooklyn public library workers' union local. Today, 350 of us got 90 day layoff notices from the library, and while not all of us will be laid off (some funding will likely be restored in budget wrangling between Bloomberg and the City Council before July 1), many of us will. Not surprisingly, my friends and colleagues that are my age (mid-late 20s) or who were hired around the same time as me hate the idea of layoffs by seniority, and see it as massively unfair because it doesn't take job performance into account. In a way, they're right, but at the same time it's also the most objective and fair way to do it, especially within an organization like a library, where the effectiveness of one's work is not necessarily quantifiable and difficult to measure. I would hate to give complete discretion over who stays and who goes to management. 
 
The question of how to weed out poor performers while maintaining a strong union is a really tough one to answer. American unions fight to preserve every last job because they are organized on the basis of territorial jurisdiction and compulsory bargaining, and it's really hard for unions to organize new workers. I don't know how to deal with this question short of completely overhauling the way American unions are structured.