yup... nothing says she HAS TO WORK THERE!!! free market means she's free to seek a better opportunity elsewhere, she's not a slave
Posted on 10/21/2013 7:09:38 AM PDT by markomalley
Kaplan Inc., which is owned by The Washington Post Company, which itself sold the actual Washington Post to billionaire Jeff Bezos, has a union problem on its hands.
Last year, 90 Kaplan employees in New York City who teach English as second language (ESL) opted to unionize in the hope of obtaining more benefits and higher pay, reports CNN.
The nascent union wants an hourly rate of about $22 for actual teaching time and at least $13 for time spent checking students’ work and planning lessons. Currently, Kaplan’s ESL teachers make $7.25 an hour — New York’s minimum wage — for this non-classroom work.
As for benefits, instructors typically work only 30 hours each week. Consequently, they are considered part time and are eligible for little in the way of benefits. The union wants some kind of health insurance option — current there isn’t one — and paid time off.
The for-profit education giant — best known for standardized test prep — has rebuffed demands for higher hourly wages in New York City. Seventeen months after negotiations began, Kaplan’s unionized employees are exactly zero percent better off.
The Newspaper Guild of New York is the union representing the Kaplan teachers.
“These are people who have master’s degrees, who bring in a ton of money for Kaplan because the ESL courses are so expensive, and yet they’re getting minimum wage to grade essays and no benefits,” Guild president Bill O’Meara told CNN.
An unidentified Kaplan spokesman blamed labor laws for preventing the company from changing wages and benefits while it is in the midst of negotiations with a union.
Meanwhile, Kaplan employees in other cities have seen an increase in prep-time pay from the minimum wage to $12 per hour.
“We think they were trying to set an example and stop other Kaplan centers from organizing,” O’Meara said.
Emily Lessem, a Kaplan ESL teacher in New York, told CNN that she brings home about $23,000 annually.
“I’ve been really cheated out of a lot of money and benefits,” Lessem complained to CNN.
According to Bankrate.com, a person making $23,000 who lives in the New York City borough of Brooklyn earns the equivalent of a person making about $12,000 per year in St. Louis, Mo. and about $15,000 in Portland, Ore.
The next round of negotiations between Kaplan and its unionized ESL teachers is set for Oct. 25.
Kaplan, which operates a large number of online and traditional brick-and-mortar programs, has come under withering Congressional scrutiny for many questionable practices including sleazy recruiting tactics.
“Internal Kaplan documents indicate that Kaplan recruiters were expected to enroll as many students as possible, and that they were trained in high-pressure sales tactics to do so,” reads a typical quote from a 2012 Senate report. “An email from the president of Kaplan’s Davenport campus instructed, ‘Every lead is to be called a minimum of 3 times per day! Every day until contact is made!’ Kaplan especially encouraged contacting ‘impulse’ leads because ‘they may lose interest and move on to something else.’”
“Documents show that during sales calls or interviews, recruiters were told to find prospective students’ ‘pain and fears’ and to use those areas to convince them that a degree was the best way to alleviate them. A rubric given to recruiters told them to ask: ‘If you don’t make this change, how do you think your future looks?’”
“I’ve been really cheated out of a lot of money and benefits,” Lessem complained to CNN.
Not exactly accurate. I think the pay is crap, but as long as she is getting the agreed-upon wage and benefits she hasn’t been cheated at all. Naturally she’ll never see it that way...
Liberal V Liberal.....love it.
Not real sure Bezos bought more than the newspaper. I think Kaplan is still part of the Washington Pose Holding Co. that he did not purchase.
It was never meant to be full time work. It's good for someone who needs the resume item, for people who just want to work a few hours a week, for retirees. It was never meant to be a salary, except for the manager. If people need the income and want entry into teaching, the options are going into private tutoring, substituting long term, or working as a full time aide.
These outfits are a sleazy financial deal. They charge a lot of money to those signing up for their programs, and pay the teachers as part-time contractors with no benefits or rights.
The employees of these places know what the deal is when they sign up. I don't understand why they'd have a rational complaint.
That is exactly the whine that caught my eye - ‘CHEATED’ ... ‘BENEFITS’ ... ‘COMPLAINED.’ Cool thing, we are not serfs.
One is reminded of the Biblical story about the ‘Laborers in the Vineyard” each receiving the same wage for different amounts of time in the fields.
yup... nothing says she HAS TO WORK THERE!!! free market means she's free to seek a better opportunity elsewhere, she's not a slave
More humiliating information for the next time the Kaplan recruiter calls. Whenever she calls she says Kaplan is owned by the prestigious WP. I tell her how much the Washington compost sucks. Ha ha ha ha ha!
But, but, there's ObamaCare.
The union tutors are now saved!
Hurray for Prince Obama!
That's my point. I refused to work for a Huntington (another one of these outfits) franchise for their slave wages. They needed a competent math teacher, so I got a decent wage.
Their workers know the deal they're agreeing to. They have no reason to complain. Assuming they're contract employees, they won't even get unemployment if they're let go. And you know what? They should be let go for complaining.....workers to present those programs are a dime a dozen.
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