Contract Negotiations from a Visitor's Perspective

Dear teachers:
As a newly elected officer of our local teachers' association, I thought it would be a good idea to know what our negotiating team is dealing with, and so I attended the meeting that was held on Friday, June 1. That one meeting filled me with a renewed appreciation and respect for our negotiating team, and I would like to thank Dennis Dickson, Shad Langfoss, Janet Renkoski, Linda Schukman, and Kay Smith from the bottom of my heart.

Just to let you know what they're dealing with, let me summarize the meeting from the perspective of a first-time visitor. Keep in mind that I know nothing about the negotiations process (which is why I went-and why I would encourage you to attend if you can), so these are just my observations.The board presented them with their "Proposal No. 1" for a new contract. They provided two copies, one that was a clean copy and one that was supposed to track the changes.The board opened the meeting by insisting that the contract be considered as a whole. I took this to mean that they don't want to reach agreement on individual articles until they have had their say about all the articles of the contract. In other words, they want to reserve the right to reopen discussion on a topic that might have been thought to be settled if they don't like our position on some other article. Our negotiating team may be in for a long haul this time around.

When I have told you some of the things they propose be included in our contract, you will understand why I thought it wasn't at all funny that they made jokes about approving the contract and being done with the process.

First of all, they propose ZERO pay increase on the base. They did embed the $1200 that was previously added on at each step/level into the salary schedule, so if you see the new salary schedule, you may think it looks like an increase. They did NOT, however, add that $1200 to the base-that would have increased pay for salaries and for supplementals, since they are indexed to the base. Linda Larison made it very clear that no salary increase is proposed.

So, for zero pay increase on the base (step/level movement only), they want us to
* work longer daily (about 47 hours more per year);
* wear specified khaki pants and polo shirts;
* work an additional day that is longer than 8 hours for parent-teacher conferences;
* give building administrators the right to extend the duty day;
* count collaboration time as planning time (elementary);
* teach 7 class periods (high school);
* give up our right to go to binding arbitration if necessary (i.e., the school board has the final say in a grievance);
* give up the right to introduce new witnesses or testimony if a grievance goes to the school board level (but note that they would still be able to introduce new witnesses or testimony);
* give up the right to be party to the decision about whether to hold grievances in open or closed session (they get to decide unilaterally whether to close the hearing);
* wait an additional three weeks to go through levels 1 and 2 of the grievance process (an extra 5 school days for a decision in a grievance that goes to the principal, an additional 5 days for a hearing if the grievance goes to the superintendent, and an additional 5 days for a decision from that hearing);
* give up the right to be represented by counsel in case of a suspension hearing; and
* pay the district back if we have to be gone on a day surrounding a holiday or on a staff development or early release day, unless we can prove illness (self or immediate relative) or extenuating circumstancesSome other things they want to do:
* add written memos to the "progressive discipline system" that includes verbal warnings, written warnings, and written reprimands, without differentiating among these components;
* make it the teacher's responsibility to request a reason for suspension (i.e., remove their obligation to provide that UNLESS the teacher requests it);
* double the fee for resigning after June 1 and add a fee for resigning after May 15.
* make attendance at building or district committee meetings held during the school day mandatory, no matter what you might have planned for your classes (i.e., take away any right to use your professional judgment about whether you are needed more by your students than by the committee);
* allow building principals to "veto" the right the contract gives you to have access to the building at specified times on working and non-working days and reduce that time;
* give teachers a $100 bonus for perfect attendance, which you would be eligible for if the only type of leave you request is professional leave. Presumably you would not be eligible if you have to be gone for teachers' association activities. No mention is made of whether you would be eligible if you take leave for school activities or jury duty.

Maybe they propose things like these as part of some negotiating strategy, but it seems to me that many of their proposals are so "out there" as to force our negotiators to request equally absurd changes, which to my mind is nothing but a huge waste of our volunteer negotiators' time and energy. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to contribute them!

Anyway, the thing that stopped the process entirely was when Linda Schukman noticed that they had removed a sentence from the definition of a grievance, which would appear, in effect, to eliminate the right of our teachers' association to file a grievance if ITS rights have been violated. The deletion of that sentence had happened since the board first proposed the new Article 10 and was not annotated on the "marked copy" the board had provided.

The negotiators for our association agreed that if the board could make such a significant change and not mark it once, it could have happened in other places within the contract they provided, and therefore it would be necessary to go over the entire document with a fine-tooth comb.

They invited the board members back in to point this out and to warn them that if they planned to wait, it might be a very long time. My observation was that Linda Larison was upset by the fact that the omission had not been documented, and Steve Fitzgerald insisted it was a clerical error.

The board has agreed to provide an updated marked copy of the contract, so we hope our negotiators won't have to go over the proposal word-for-word. Unfortunately, I learned yesterday that they did not have the new document ready in time for the next scheduled meeting, which was supposed to be yesterday afternoon (June 7). That means there won't be another meeting until June 19.

I need to take this opportunity to thank our negotiating team again. Many, many thanks to them! I would also like to encourage any and all of you to attend and listen in, give the negotiators any helpful ideas you have, and show the board that they don't deal with just a small group but with an entire association! Join us on Tuesday, June 19, at 5:30 p.m. at the BOE.

Sincerely,
Ginger Riddle
Co-President, LNEA