Posted on 09/16/2005 6:00:25 AM PDT by Born Conservative
PLAINS TWP. (PA) – Crestwood teachers filed a strike notice Thursday night and said the district offered them a “trash” proposal that insists they pay a portion of health-care premiums.
Teachers will go on strike after next week if a settlement is not reached by Sept. 23 in the three-year contract dispute. No other negotiation sessions are planned before then.
Board member Gene Mancini Jr. said the district will not budge in requiring teachers to pay a portion of health care premiums in any new contract. “First and foremost, the public demands it,” he said. “The public pays for it.”
Negotiator John Holland of the Pennsylvania State Education Association said the union has told the district it can save $300,000 the first year by joining the Northeast Pennsylvania School Districts Health Trust and through other measures. He said the district insisted that regardless of those proposed savings, premium sharing is a must. “There’s always one more hoop to jump through,” he said.
Mancini said the union called the district’s proposal “trash” and that it was not worth a response. “We thought it was an earnest proposal, that we’d get a settlement,” he said.
Holland said the district has led the Crestwood Education Association to believe it was looking into joining the health trust. Both sides met previously with the trust and Mancini said the district and its health consultant will meet Wednesday to discuss the trust.
Holland said the district proposed Thursday that teachers pay 50 percent of any premium increases. “They gave us a proposal that was completely unrealistic,” he said. The CEA includes approximately 180 teachers and professional employees who do not pay any portion of their premiums under the old contract that expired in August 2002.
District Superintendent Richard Duffy said more information for parents and students will be distributed Monday. Teachers are required to give 48 hours notice before a strike. Crestwood teachers staged a one-day strike last Nov. 22 before a judge ordered them back to class. “This year I don’t know how long the strike will be,” Duffy said.
According to the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, the state will determine the “critical date of return” by which teachers must be back in the classroom. That date is determined by counting backwards from June 15 to ensure 180 instructional days. Teachers can go on strike twice in a school year. The state determines a second critical date of return by counting backwards from June 30.
Duffy said extracurricular activities that teachers are involved in are in question, but the district hopes to keep the programs going throughout the strike. “I don’t know what teachers’ positions will be,” he said. Board President Bill Jones said replacement coaches are an option. Teachers coach field hockey, golf, tennis and cross country.
“We haven’t covered that yet,” Holland said. “This came on suddenly.” He said the union didn’t plan to give a strike notice Thursday, but it did so after the district insisted on premium sharing.
School Board members Bill Thomas, Cynthia Mailloux and Jerry Orloski and district solicitor Jack Dean attended the bargaining session. CEA President Joe Chmiola and several teachers represented the union.
Mancini said the union rejected the district’s offer to engage in “final best offer arbitration.” Holland said that is like the state fact-finding process both sides already went through. “This is just more delaying on the district’s part,” he said.
Both sides last November agreed to the state fact-finding process aimed at settling the contract dispute. The report recommended both parties reach a “middle ground” in health care, with teachers paying a portion of premiums if they choose two of the more costly plans offered. Both sides rejected the settlement proposal on April 4.
PSEA spokeswoman Barbara Brady stood by after Thursday’s 2 ½-hour session as district officials talked outside with media. Several board members then went inside to listen as Holland addressed the media, but he would not let them stay. “I don’t want them here,” he said. “I think they made their position clear tonight.”
Holland now has two teachers unions planning to strike, with premium sharing being a key area of dispute. Old Forge teachers in Lackawanna County filed a strike notice and plan to picket on Sept. 22. “I’ll handle it,” Holland said.
District: Teachers resign en masse
Greedy PSEA ping
Cool!
Let 'em all quit. I predict a flourishing market for private schools/homeschooling in that district.
Do you mean that memebers of the teachers union actually did work?
Dear Teachers,
Take a nice long sabbatical...you won't be missed.
PTA,
Hire NON-union teachers who WANT TO TEACH. Problem solved.
Doesn't Federal law prohibit teacher's from going on strike?
If so, then I say, throw all the Union leaders in jail!
And THEN fire the teachers!
Supply and demand? Hire non-union teachers?
Get rid of the socialist indoctrination centers
Where can I find the nearest one? I haven't seen one.
I thought this was an old story.
Why, the NERVE of those people!
Why, the NERVE of those people!
They are ignorant of the trend that teachers are paying for their medical premiums. My brother quit teaching after a year (he became one on a special program--he had been a geologist before) because of the high cost of insurance for pretty bad benefits. He got better working elsewhere. The trend soon will be just having the insurance cover JUST the individual person and not anyone else--so I've been told anyways.
Between Spanish classes, computer classes, "social studies" etc... (For first graders!?) there is no time to teach the basics.
Where I teach, not having extra things like those are used against the neighborhood schools. It's darned if you do and darned if you don't.
Typically in the private schools, teachers pay a small portion or none at all, but to add anyone is usually going to cost 300+.
...in the three-year contract dispute
Was it a three year contract or a three year dispute?
PS, Where did you go to school?
Typically in the private schools, teachers pay a small portion or none at all, but to add anyone is usually going to cost 300+.
My premiums have increased every year for the last several years (as have everyone's), but it is still quite reasonable. However, for those with kids, it is quite expensive. In the rare years that we get a raise, it goes towards medical premiums. I'm not complaining though, just stating stuff.
This is a dumb thing to strike over though. I won't ever go on strike, that's for sure (we never really have here anyways).
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