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PRINGLE — Accusing the Dallas School District of dominating negotiations for the five districts that send students, the West Side Career and Technical Center teacher union is urging the CTC to reconsider its rejection of a proposed compromise to settle a two-year-old contract dispute.
In a media release Monday morning, union president Chris Morreale said “it is with profound disappointment that our association learned of the JOC’s (Joint Operating Committee) vote to reject the neutral fact finder’s recommendations for a fair settlement.” The JOC is composed of representatives from school boards of the five districts that send students to the center: Lake-Lehman, Northwest Area, Wyoming Area and Wyoming Valley West.
“Our contract has always been based on the average of the sending school districts. Bargaining should not be a complicated process, nor should it have taken this long,” Morreale said in the release. “It seems as though West Side is becoming a mini-Dallas, including protracted contract negotiations. The Chief School Administrator, the business manager and the only board member at bargaining are from Dallas.”
Dallas School District went through three years of sometimes-bitter negotiations before hammering out a new contract last fall with its teacher union.
West Side CTC teachers have been working under terms of a contract that expired Aug. 31, 2017. In September the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board appointed Robert Millett as fact finder. Fact finding is a nonbinding process in which both sides present their arguments and proposals. The fact finder then offers a compromise.
The union accepted Millett’s report but the JOC rejected it at last week’s meeting. In the release, union spokeswoman Jessica Sabol said “The JOC has the opportunity to take a second vote on this fact finder’s report. We urge them to vote in favor of it so that respect for the workforce and student population of West Side could be restored.”
The report presents the offers of both sides and Millett’s proposals. The main sticking points:
• Contract duration. The union wants a six-year agreement into 2023, the JOC offered four years. Millett split the difference and suggested five years.
• Tuition reimbursement. This is complicated because West Side is a comprehensive vocational center, meaning students attend full time and get both academic and career training at the center. Most CTCs are half-day, leaving the academic teaching to a student’s home district.
JOC lead negotiator Attorney Charles Coslett said the the center offered 100% tuition reimbursement for state-required Temple University credits in order to attract strong candidates, but it comes with a caveat: Employees must work at the center at least five years or pay back all reimbursement. Academic class teachers get a fixed amount per credit. The union wants 100 percent reimbursement for both. Millett recommends $250 per credit for academic and vocational courses, with the five-year payback requirement. Coslett said that is too low to cover the Temple courses and a little higher than the current reimbursement for academic courses.
• Early Retirement Incentive. The union wants it restored, the JOC does not. Millett recommends keeping the status quo.
• Health insurance premium sharing. This is tied to whether the Center continues getting insurance through the Northeast Pennsylvania School District Health Trust, a consortium of area districts. Two of the five districts that sent students to the center left the Health Trust, and Coslett said the JOC wants the option to do the same. The union wants to stay in the trust. During negotiations, Coslett said, the center offered to stay in the trust if teachers began paying 10% of the insurance premium.
Millett recommended staying in the Trust and calculating the percent of premium paid by teachers through a “weighted average salary” method. Center salaries are the average of teacher salaries in all five districts, with extra weight given to salaries from districts with more student at the center. Millett’s proposal would do a similar calculation on district premium share averages and apply it to West Side teachers, but Coslett said that would result in a premium share of about 1.5%. The reason: Wyoming Valley West makes up about 65% of West Side’s enrollment, but has no health insurance premium sharing in its contract. That would bring the average of the three district’s that have premium sharing down dramatically, Coslett said.
Coslett dismissed the call for reconsidering the fact finder report with a second JOC vote, saying the board was unanimous in rejecting it the first time.