Footloose and contract-free!

Virtually the whole time I've worked as a teacher in NYC, it's been without a contract (that is, working under an expired contract).

The month that I started five years ago, the contract expired. After a year (or two? I'm a little fuzzy on the chronology), we got a new contract and a nice back-pay check. However, so much time had passed that the new contract expired soon after it was agreed to. That was tricky, because the city was in financial trouble and it seemed like we had just received a raise and were asking - greedily - for another, when the truth was that the raise was retroactive. So, it might be a silver lining that we are entering our third year without a new contract, because the public can no longer think, "oh they just got a raise." But c'mon, people, I need that retroactive pay! Not to mention that if and when we DO get a new contract, it will promptly expire, as I believe they are usually 3-year contracts.

Oh, and by the way: under the Taylor Law, we would lose two days pay for every one day missed, if it should get to the point of a strike.

No public employee or employee organization shall engage in a strike, and no public employee or employee organization shall cause, instigate, encourage, or condone a strike.
...
Not earlier than thirty nor later than ninety days following the date of such determination, the chief fiscal officer of the government involved shall deduct from the compensation of each such public employee an amount equal to twice his daily rate of pay for each day or part thereof that it was determined that he had violated this subdivision...

Thanks to The School of Blog for knowing about my life before I do, and read NYC Educator for more commentary.