The district wants the union to sign a two year agreement, with a wage freeze next school year and a moderate wage increase during the 2010- 2011 year. The wage freeze would mean no yearly raise for the teachers. It also wants to limit tuition reimbursement and salary increases for continuing education to once a year. Additional to this is the teachers who are stuck on being able to limit class size to a reasonable level. The talks have been going on for quite some time now and it has so far not reached any solid agreements. Both sides seem to have recently hit an impasse. Meaning that no progress in the negotiations are being made. The Union, hoping to dislodge the negotiations from stagnation, have gotten approval for the teachers to strike and the news will soon be out whether they will follow through on this threat to strike.
One of the main reasons of all the raise cuts and budget cuts is that apparently the district has recently stated that they have ended the past year with a monstrous debt amounting to 8.9 million dollars. And because of this massive debt the teachers shouldn't be negotiating right now at all. It is obvious that at this point in time the school district is unable to meet there demands. The best course of action would to currently accept the terms that the school has offered them and set a date a few years in the future to renegotiate. Hopefully when this date is reached the financial situation is under control and the school has more leeway to negotiate. So the teachers shouldn't strike, they should bide their time and not act rashly. Currently the most pressing thing on both the district's and Union's agendas should be educating the students.
No comments:
Post a Comment