Oregon School Employees Association Bargaining Session Update: September 11, 2014

September 11, 2014 OSEA Negotiations Update:

The meeting was held in the Woodland Elementary School Library from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The District presented a package proposal that included Articles 4, 8, and 26 and a separate proposal for Article 21 as follows:

Article 4 – Fringe Benefits:  The District proposed the following increases to the insurance CAP:

Article 8 – Salary:  The District proposed the following increases:

2014 - 2015: A 1.5% increase to the 2013/2014 Salary Schedule

2015 – 2016:  A 1.5% increase to the 2014/2015 Salary Schedule (Please note typo in proposal: states “one percent (1.5%)” – the proposal is 1.5% one and one-half percent)

2016 – 2017:  A 1.5% increase to the 2015/2016 Salary Schedule (Please note typo in proposal: states “one percent (1.5%)” – the proposal is 1.5% one and one-half percent)

Educational Assistants assigned to a special education self-contained classroom will receive a 4% behavioral stipend.

Educational Assistants whose job requires full assistance with toileting will receive a 4% hygiene stipend.

There was also discussion about the jobs that have been brought forward with requests to reclassify them.  The District indicated that it might be time to consider a doing a full salary survey to determine which jobs are truly being paid below market value.  The District is keeping some funds in reserve to address potential changes, if needed.

Article 26 – Early Retirement: The District proposed retaining current contract language which eliminated the early retirement benefits to those who retire after July 1, 2014.

Article 21 – Transportation:  The District proposed changing the overtime language in C. to pay overtime for drivers who work over 40 hours in a week, rather than 10 hours in a day to be consistent with other classified staff’s overtime pay.  The only exception would be when a single trip has a duration of over twelve hours, then overtime would be paid for any hours in excess of twelve for that trip.  This would allow the district to assign more trips to more senior drivers who typically cannot be assigned these trips because they would exceed 10 hours in a day but they may not reach 40 hours in a given week.

There was also discussion related to two other articles that were opened by OSEA:

Article 16 – Strike and Work Stoppage.   While the District has no plans to contract out, the Board would likely not ratify a contract that included waiving the right to do so.  OSEA presented the attached counter proposal.

Article 27 – Administrative Accountability.  This is a new article proposed by OSEA that requires the District to provide a narrative and supportive quantitative data when the ratio between administrative employees and classified employees of the school district increases by 1%.  The District’s position is that there are many levels of accountability already in place.  The Board can be recalled, administrators can be dismissed.  Providing this level of detail, in addition to what is already provided, would require additional FTE to manage.  OSEA shared that they are frustrated when justification is made to bring back administrative positions but there has been no effort to reinstate eliminated classified positions such as EA’s. 

Articles that Remain Open (10 of 27):

·         Article 2 – District Rights

·         Article 4 – Fringe Benefits

·         Article 5 – Leaves of Absence

·         Article 8 – Salary

·         Article 16 – Strike and Work Stoppage

·         Article 21 – Transportation

·         Article 24 – Job Openings

·         Article 25 – Discrimination

·         Article 26 – Early Retirement

·         Article 27 – Administrative Accountability (New)

Next Steps:

The next negotiations session is scheduled for Tuesday, September 30th from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Woodland Library.