Bob

Becomes a mute point when many places are a at will state, so pretty much do as they wish.

gardnma

Its been my experience that companies here have scaled back consistently on benefits to employees over the last 20 years.
Health insurance premiums get rolled over to the employee. I had to wait 3 months for health bennies on my last job. :scared:
Company pensions are scrapped and less employer matching is going on with 401k type plans.
There seems to be less and less loyalty towards either party also.

What a terrific working environment this is.
.....Er, driver! This stop please, think, I'll hop off.

Bob

Aye...but on the other hand, the place I'm at, had to be there a year to get the 401K, but after the recent hires, they changed it to 3 months before you can enroll....but they did reduce the amount that they would match from whatever you put in to a max of I think $15K a year...still not bad.

Where the missus use to work, you had to have been there for a year before you could enroll the family on to your health insurance.

angelman

I'll just go into a little more detail on this and then calll it quits, just incase there any lawyers around...
There are 3 seperate issues here
1) maternity leave. I know you dont get paid maternity leave but you do get 3 months in cali ASFAIK. Her contract is for x number of days work for x dollars (around 250 days for around $40K). She also has an OPTION to work an extra 2 weeks work. This is voluntary and if she doesnt she still gets paid the 40K. They say though that if she doesnt work the OPTIONAL 2 weeks this gets included in her maternity leave. This doesnt seem to make sense. Even they cant quite twist it around, they just say.. well thats just how it is..seems maybe discriminatory to me perhaps

2) Bonus benefits. Last year she was given a piece of paper which outlined that years bonus plan and pay scale. If she and the school as a whole met at least ONE of two goals she would get $2K bonus. This year they changed the rules and said that they had to meet 2 of the goals which was funny because last year they only met one of the goals - enough though to qualify for the full bonus under the old rules. They are now saying that THIS years bonus rules apply to last year because the bonus is paid out this year. Again they dont have a logical explanation because it doesnt make sense, they just bluster and say err.. thats just how it is lady.
Now this does involve all the teachers, sadly none of them were awake at the meeting and only now have they been made aware (by my wife) of what the school is doing.
On top of that this bonus is being pro rated because of her maternity leave she will be taking later this year. There was no mention that the bonus would be pro rated.

3) Maternity leave is unpaid so her current pay which is set as an annual salary is being pro rated to reflect this as are all her bonuses and sick days. Thus her bonus which is one of the main incentives to be at this school is now reduced further. Her bonus has shrunk from $2000 to $1000 because of item 2). This is then further pro rated because of the maternity leave to about $700 or so. This is then taxed leaving her with something in the region of $300... woooo BIG incentive!

Maybe my wife should not be a teacher because she doesnt like getting royally screwed by all those around her? Some days though even the thought of the happy smiling kids faces isnt enough and cold hard cash is needed

As for the school, many teachers are upset about a number of items. The school itself is a huge success right now but will rapidly go downhill when they lose their number one assets.. their teachers! Its a blue ribband school and is seeking national accreditation as a centre of excellence. It serves a very deprived area in LA county. I cant tell the name of course and its highly unlikely that anyone here would ever have any dealings with it anyway.

Thanks as ever for the little input and words of advice. I may check out some of the options.. Almost for the sake of the school its worth fighting for otherwise they will quickly loose their finest teachers.

I suspect that because they are doing so well the government has pulled resources from them and they are losing cash rapidly. Rather than being open and telling teachers whats going on they are keeping it quiet and quietly removing benefits and trying to cut costs.