Mounds View paras stick together with strike vote

March 6, 2020 by

(SEIU photo)

More Twin Cities workers are making preparations for a possible strike.

The union representing nearly 400 para-educators in the Mounds View Public Schools today announced its members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a 24-hour strike if contract negotiations continue to stall.

Para-educators are the first district employees to take a strike vote in 40 years, according to their union, Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union.

“It’s sad we had to go this route,” said Local 284 member Melissa Grewe, who works with special-ed students at Reach Academy. “But we’re united, we’re standing together and we’re hopeful we can get this done.”

Bargaining with the district began nine months ago, but for union members, progress has been slow on key issues like affordable health insurance.

Para-educators pay a greater share of health-insurance premiums than other bargaining units in the district. Equity, para-educator Cathy Springhorn said, is long overdue.

“Paras are the people who always put others before themselves,” Springhorn said. “But now we’re standing up in a way we never have before. We deserve to get the same health insurance as everyone else, and we need the tools to make sure every student reaches their highest potential.”

Para-educators also are fighting the school district’s attempt to eliminate a provision allowing them to spread their pay over 12 months.

Other union demands reflect the changing nature of para-educators’ work.

Before bargaining began last June, Local 284 circulated surveys asking members to list their top concerns. Many said they lacked the time needed to keep up with new responsibilities, like third-party billing, communicating with families and filling out reports. Others felt they could better serve students with more time to plan and collaborate with teachers.

Contract proposals developed out of those concerns, Grewe said, have gone nowhere in negotiations so far.

“We have no time built into our day to get these tasks done, so a lot of people are either doing them after school on their own time or during their break time, their lunch time,” she said. “It’s frustrating, and members don’t feel respected or valued by the district.

“I think that shows by the number of people who came out to vote.”

About 90% of union members participated in the strike-authorization vote, held at school facilities earlier this week, and 80.7% voted “yes,” according to the union. Grewe said she hopes district leaders got the message.

“Come to the table and actually bargaining with us,” she said. “We do this because we love kids. And with a fair contract, we can make the kids’ experience even better than what it is.”

Para-educators have not set a strike date. They are required to provide the district with 10-days notice before going on strike.

The two sides are scheduled to resume mediated talks March 31.

Some 4,000 janitors across the metro and 3,600 St. Paul educators are in last-ditch negotiations this week. If they are unable to reach an agreement, janitors plan to begin an open-ended strike over unfair labor practices March 9. Educators would begin their strike a day later.

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

ISD 622 support staff push back, win contracts they deserve

January 24, 2020 by

Union members packed the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale school board meeting in support of OPEIU Local 12’s contract demands. (submitted photo)

In December, after several bargaining sessions with members of Office and Professional Employees Local 12, negotiators for the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale school system put their best and final offer on the table.

Turns out, it was neither District 622’s best nor its final offer.

That’s because members of Local 12, who work as nurses, educational assistants and clerical staff, decided for the first time in Kelly Riemenschneider’s 19 years with the district to go get what they deserve.

“You get pretty used to hearing, ‘This is the best we can do for you,’ and sitting back and going, ‘well, OK,’” said Riemenschneider, an office nurse and union steward. “This time we didn’t. Sometimes you need to do that. You need to stand up for yourself.”

Members of Local 12’s bargaining team decided to take their frustrations to the school board. They targeted the Dec. 17 meeting and put together a plan to turn out as many supporters as possible.

Stewards like Riemenschneider began spreading word to the union’s 130 members, who work in 15 different buildings. Local 12 also reached out to unions that represent other workers in the district, including Education Minnesota, Service Employees Local 284 and Operating Engineers Local 70.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, which unites over 100 local unions in the east metro, put out a call for solidarity among its affiliates, too.

The organizing effort paid off, as a standing-room-only crowd greeted school board members at their meeting. Local 12 members in the room held up signs reading, “We deserve a fair contract!”

When board members opened the meeting to public comment, Cathy DeGlusti, an elementary nurse, described the critical work she and other Local 12 members do for the district. Each year, DeGlusti said, the district expects them to absorb more students and more responsibilities into their workload, but balks at giving those same workers an annual raise.

“It saddens me,” DeGlusti said. “We all work very hard at taking care of the students. We care about their well-being in every aspect of their lives.”

The show of solidarity, Riemenschneider said, had an impact.

“I could see by look on their faces that school board members were very surprised,” she said. “Just seeing us there, it spoke volumes that this is important to us, and you need to remember we are here and we are important.”

Lo and behold, the message trickled down to the district’s bargaining team, too. The next time Local 12 and District 622 met, they were able to reach tentative agreements on new contracts for both of the union’s bargaining units.

“The district moved significantly on wages, health care and language we wanted in the contracts,” Local 12 representative Jim Niland said. “The district also agreed to move everyone in the clerical unit up to $15 an hour, which was one of our demands going into bargaining.”

Was the district’s change of heart a happy coincidence? Riemenschneider doubts it.

“The big thing I’ve learned from this experience is something we’re always trying to teach our students,” she said. “We want them to be as independent as they can be, to advocate for themselves. Well, if I’m teaching that, why am I not taking that advice for myself?

“So that’s what we did, and it was a really good experience.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Education secretary’s ‘Tea for Teachers’ taps St. Paul educator

March 23, 2016 by
Schatzlein stands to the immediate left of Education Secretary John B. King Jr., at the center of the photo. (U.S. Department of Education photo)

Schatzlein stands to the immediate left of Education Secretary John B. King Jr., at the center of the photo. (U.S. Department of Education photo)

 

Erica Schatzlein was checking her email over lunch Feb. 23 when she found an invite to have tea with the U.S. secretary of education. The teacher of English language learners at Nokomis Montessori North was skeptical.

“At first I was thinking, ‘Is this real? It looks real,’” she said. “I decided to respond and see what happens.”

A month later she was in Washington D.C., one of 11 educators participating in a “teatime conversation” with then-interim Secretary John B. King Jr. about how to create safe learning environments where students are free from discrimination based on race, religion and national origin.

Schatzlein, who lives in Minneapolis, has taught in the St. Paul Public Schools since 2004 and is an active member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, twice serving on the union’s bargaining team.

But Schatzlein suspects it was her ELL activism that drew notice from the Department of Education. SPFT’s 2013-15 contract established a specific committee to consider ELL policies and advocate for ELL students. Schatzlein is a member, and she’s become passionate about better serving the district’s fast-growing Karen population, which includes many students whose education has been limited or interrupted.

Schatzlein brought that passion for ELL advocacy to Washington.

“I did some reflecting on what the secretary needs to hear about the needs of our kids here in Minnesota and what the federal government can do,” she said. “There are needs for our ELL kids that are heightened based on their life experiences, and I wanted that to be addressed.

“I also wanted to talk about the need for student supports, for school counselors, social workers, mental health care professionals; support for teachers and training to make sure all staff and teachers who work with ELL kids know how to meet their needs.”

It turned out Schatzlein wasn’t the only teacher in the hour-long session hoping to raise those concerns.

“Those issues were brought up almost immediately,” she said. “We could’ve talked for days.”

King mostly listened to the conversation, but when it was over he revealed some of the department’s forthcoming initiatives. “Happily some of them aligned with the issues we had brought up,” Schatzlein said.

Still, she left the teatime conversation feeling “guarded hope,” given the political climate in Washington. But Schatzlein said it was good to know the issues and ideas she’s working on in St. Paul are also percolating in the nation’s capital.

“Right now we’re so concerned about test scores when we talk about student achievement,” she said. “What is often forgotten is if our students don’t have their safety, physical and mental-health needs met, the achievement is not going to be there.”

And if teachers don’t have a strong voice on the job, Schatzlein added, it’s harder to effectively advocate for their students – at the local or national level.

“If I had not had my union, this meeting would not have happened,” she said. “Their support of ELL issues and support of my own development – learning how to advocate and how to organize – is what made this possible.”

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