DP News

July 2, 2009

Lehman, teachers reach deal

Agreement made just hours after tentative pact attained at Northwest Area.

By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter
Mark Guydish on Facebook   |   @TLMarkGuydish on Twitter

LEHMAN TWP. – Around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Lake-Lehman School District earned the dubious distinction of having the longest-running teacher contract dispute in Luzerne County.

About five hours later, it lost that title when the two sides hammered out a tentative agreement around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Both sides were deep into a marathon negotiating session that had begun around 4 p.m. Tuesday when news broke that Northwest Area had reached a tentative teacher contract agreement, ending negotiation gridlock that had lasted since 2005. That meant Lake-Lehman, where the contract expired in 2006, now had the longest ongoing contract dispute.

But the Lake-Lehman people kept talking, and at around 1:30 a.m. they finally struck a bargain, district lead negotiator attorney John Audi and union lead negotiator John Holland both said. Details of the agreements in both districts will not be released until the actual language of the contracts is hammered out.

In both districts, negotiations lasted so long that the people involved and the tactics used changed substantially. At Northwest Area, the union changed lead negotiators three times, though all three were provided by the Pennsylvania State Education Association Northeast Region office.

Matt Gruenloh got the job in January 2008. The board also changed lead negotiators several times before attorney Richard Galtman of the firm Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams was hired in 2007.

At Lake-Lehman, Holland, also from the PSEA, worked as union lead negotiator from the start, and School Board Solicitor Charles Coslett led the talks for the district until this January, when he resigned as lead negotiator, citing a difference of opinion with the direction the board was heading in contract talks.

Board Member Walter Glogowski, a former teacher and union activist, had been appointed to the negotiating team.

The Lake-Lehman board replaced Coslett with Audi, also of the firm Sweet, Stevens Katz and Williams, but Audi brought an unusual pedigree to the negotiating table. Until last October, he had worked with the PSEA for nearly a decade, filing labor grievances and court briefs related to negotiations, including those at Lehman on behalf of Holland.

In both districts, a chief sticking point was a board demand that teachers pay part of their health insurance premiums.

At Northwest, in March, 2008, the union agreed to pay a small part of the premium, but the board said it was too little. At Lake-Lehman, the board dropped the demand for premium-sharing in April, 2008, asking instead for an increase in deductibles and co-pays, a deal the union rejected.

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