Voluntary Redundancy

As I was reading The Guardian this morning, I noticed reference to a very curious phrase called, "Voluntary Redundancy." This roughly translates to a buyout by a company of select workers -- with a generous severance pay offer. After a little research, I found The Guardian, had done a longer piece on the fact that companies were likely to offer many workers this option, given job projections in Britain. When faced with such an offer, a woman in publishing noted: "It was a lot of money and could have nearly paid off my mortgage. I decided against in the end because I wasn't certain I would find other work, but I'm still not sure I made the right decision." ("What to do if you are offered Voluntary Redundancy," Jill Insley, The Guardian February 26, 2010.) Typically, as with incentive packages offered in the private sector in the US, Voluntary Redundancy packages are 10 - 12 months pay. That doesn't sound anything like the buyout which was discussed (and seems to have disappeared) by the DOE. If we are to be expected to follow a more corporate model in education, why isn't the DOE acting more like a business and offering a reasonable incentive to those whom it wishes to take a buyout? Not that a buyout would really help me, even if it were this generous.


 There's nothing else I am qualified to do but teach, and I can't face the next eleven years on one year's salary. Nor can I use it to train to become something else -- it won't cover any private education tuition, and should I even get into a public school for re-training, what will I use to live on? However, such a buyout might be viable for people who are or five years away from retirement, if they can also start to receive their pensions. The small incentive numbers (Walcott said something about looking at what was offered in Dallas - 2 to 10,000 dollars, in that case) wouldn't really help anyone. If you are renting an apartment for, say, 1,500 a month, why would you take an offer that didn't even cover a year's rent? It's bizarre that a DOE working under a mayor who is a businessman would offer packages that would have no place in a corporate model. Often these packages include maintaining some of the benefits that the job offered, so no one can argue that any benefits UFT workers might get to keep from a buyout outweigh the small cash package. Corporations in Britain, anyway, also offer job re-training programs. Do you know how impossibly difficult it is to try to get a different job if you have spent your life teaching? Such programs might be very valuable to someone who can't quite manage to live on whatever his/her pension might be, but could supplement his/her income if he/she had new skills. Again, this wouldn't help me, and frankly, what I want is to continue to work in education because I actually like teaching. 


 However, if I were three years away from retirement and could start to collect my pension, I could take an offer of a year's salary and re-training. A big, "IF," but there are people out there for whom this might be a reality. People who take Voluntary Redundancy also have the option of returning to their companies -- in the same way, I guess as people can work F-Status, or just come out of retirement. If someone were to do this, he/she might also bring new skills and experience to his/her position. This would enrich the school environment. Now, this is all not viable for me, and not something I would would want "at this point in my career." Unlike the many interviewers whom I have faced who look at my years of experience and have used the latter phrase to imply my experience and age would make me unwilling to work hard, I WANT TO TAKE MY EXPERIENCE and really put it to work on the job. I feel frustrated that I can't do this. That I can't, finally, use what I know to improve a situation. Then, after being allowed to come close to completing my life's work, if the economy were still in bad shape - in about 8 -10 years, I might be ready for a buyout.