Bargaining moves at slowest pace in two decades as Minnesota educators get bold

March 25, 2024 by

Members of the Burnsville Education Association held informational picketing before the March 14 school board meeting.

Union educators in Lakeville earlier this month voted down their district’s best contract offer 99% to 1%. Days later in Burnsville, hundreds of educators lined the street outside the district’s offices to demand administrators do better at the bargaining table.

Educators in the east metro and across Minnesota are being bold in their contract demands during this bargaining cycle, sticking together for compensation gains that, union members say, are overdue after years of underfunding – and key to addressing a teacher shortage.

“Every teacher in the Lakeville district is making less money in real terms than they were 10 years ago, even with raises for additional experience,” Johannah Surma, lead negotiator for Education Minnesota Lakeville, said. “Our pay just hasn’t kept up with inflation.”

Union members don’t expect to catch up in one contract, but their “no” vote, Surma said, sent a strong message that it will take more than the district’s last offer – a 1% raise in the first year and 5% in the second – to get them to settle.

Lakeville isn’t the only district where educators are holding out for more this year, following a record $2.2 billion state funding increase for public education. As of earlier this month, roughly 71% of Education Minnesota-affiliated local unions had settled their contracts.

“That is the slowest number in the last 20 years,” Education Minnesota Vice President Monica Byron said. “But that shows the hard work that all the locals across this state have been doing because they deserve it. We are all worth more.”

Already this school year, educators in large school districts like St. Paul, Anoka-Hennepin and St. Francis have voted to authorize strikes, although all three unions settled before a work stoppage.

Dozens of other Education Minnesota locals have staged informational picketing or public demonstrations before board meetings and outside schools, rallying community support for their contract demands.

The Burnsville Education Association (BEA) served pie to some 300 union members and supporters who joined an informational picket and rally on March 14, or “Pi Day” for math enthusiasts.

Afterward, union members spoke at a school board listening session, demanding a bigger share of the economic pie, particularly for adult basic education teachers and early learning teachers who are not yet on the union’s main salary schedule.

Educators are holding firm to some non-economic demands, too.

BEA members are looking to address concerns about violence in their schools, and demanding that educators who are injured at work don’t have to use their personal days to cover any absences before they qualify for workers’ compensation.

In Lakeville, educators are resisting a district proposal that would give administrators the power to transfer teachers into other positions that they are licensed to fill. Union members would be subject to involuntary transfers before or even during the school year, Surma said.

“Teachers develop relationships with kids, that’s kind of the foundation of how we do our work,” she said. “Students build trust with us, and we get to know them and know what they need. Disrupting that is really disruptive to kids.”

Both Education Minnesota Lakeville, which represents 765 educators, and the BEA, which represents about 650, had bargaining or mediation dates scheduled in late March.

“We hope to make progress,” Surma said. “That’s our first choice, to continue to make progress at the table toward a settlement that meets everybody’s needs and doesn’t disrupt the classroom for the kids.”

Lakeville educators will hold a rally with community supporters at 6 p.m. March 26 at the district offices, located at 17630 Juniper Path, Lakeville.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

St. Paul educators vote to authorize strike: ‘It’s time for us to stop being disrespected’

February 16, 2024 by

Over 2,000 SPFE members voted on a potential strike yesterday at the Carpenters hall in St. Paul.

Over two-thirds of the Saint Paul Federation of Educators’ members filed into the Carpenters union hall yesterday to take a strike vote, and an overwhelming 92% voted “yes.”

Union leaders said they hope the resounding support educators showed for their bargaining team will push the St. Paul Public Schools to improve its financial proposals in mediation sessions scheduled the next two Fridays. Otherwise, the union’s 3,689 members – teachers, education assistants and school professionals – could go on strike next month.

“When the district sits and refuses to talk to our bargaining team about the things that we need, they are not just refusing that small group of people,” SPFE Treasurer Robyn Asher, a teacher on special assignment, said. “There are thousands of us, and this (vote) is a show of support.

“We’re showing that we’re ready, and we’re hoping that they take us seriously.”

That means offering educators more than the most recent wage proposal, which would raise most union members’ pay by 3.75% over the two-year contract. Educators also want some relief in their health insurance costs.

“We just had insurance increases, and our paychecks have all gone down,” Rene Myers, an intervention specialist at Hazel Park Preparatory Academy, said. “The district wants to add to the cost.”

SPFE members said they expect the district to do better after state lawmakers passed a record $2.3 billion increase in funding for public schools last May – and after the district raised administrators’ pay by 6% last August.

“It’s about priorities,” Asher said. “With what our members are seeing the Legislature give to education this time and for what we know that we need to retain educators, [the district’s offer] is not good enough.”

SPFE members went on strike for a week in 2020, and they came within minutes of a strike deadline in 2022 before reaching a deal with the district. Those talks resulted in historic contract language that commits the district to investing in the services that educators say their students need, like class-size limits, school nurses and mental-health supports.

This time around, union negotiators are looking to preserve and expand on those gains, while also gaining ground in compensation, arguing it is critical to the district’s ability to recruit and retain staff during a statewide teacher shortage. Myers said 75% of her colleagues at Hazel Park have told her “they’re leaving or they’re thinking about leaving.”

In a statement released after the votes were tallied, SPFE President Leah VanDassor said educators don’t want to strike, but have shown they are committed to doing what’s necessary “to give our students the schools they deserve and keep our educators in the profession for years to come.”

“Over the past decade, our union has come together with our community to win improvements to our schools like class size limits and student mental health supports,” she added. “Now is the time to build on that progress while also helping our educators afford their lives and stay in this district.”

SPFE must give the district notice at least 10 days before beginning a potential strike.

“Nobody wants to go on strike,” Myers said. “This is not what we set out to do. It’s an inconvenience and a pay loss for a lot of us. But it’s time for us to stop being disrespected.”

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Walker’s anti-union Act 10 dealing major blow to WI public schools, report finds

November 20, 2017 by

Working people from Wisconsin and Minnesota came together in Hudson, Wis., to protest Act 10 in February 2011. (file photo)

A new analysis of Wisconsin’s public schools reveals several alarming trends since the state adopted legislation stripping teachers and other public service workers of most collective bargaining rights in 2011.

“Gov. Scott Walker and Republican elected leaders in Wisconsin said that Act 10 would benefit schools and families alike,” said David Madlan, co-author of the report. “They couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Instead of improving public schools, Act 10 has led to a sharp decline in teachers’ wages and benefits and a troubling uptick in teacher turnover, according to the report.

Madlan and his co-author, Alex Rowell, found that by the 2015-16 school year, the average Wisconsin teacher was earning nearly $11,000 less than before Act 10 passed, when adjusted for inflation.

Unsurprisingly, teachers have been leaving the profession – or finding jobs in other states – at a higher rate since Act 10, and data collected by the state’s Department of Public Instruction shows an influx of less experienced teachers into Wisconsin’s public schools.

“We have seen turnover like we’ve never seen before,” Shelly Moore Krajacic, an English and drama teacher in Ellsworth, Wis., told reporters on a conference call unveiling the report’s findings last week. “It’s difficult for the students and for the teachers to develop teamwork and process.”

Academic research into teacher longevity backs up Moore Krajacic’s experience. “The research is pretty clear that experience and stability of teachers is an important factor in the quality of education a school can provide,” Madlan said.

Commissioned by the nonpartisan Center for American Progress Action Fund, the report serves as a warning to lawmakers in neighboring states considering similar measures.

Last year the Minnesota Legislature moved to weaken teachers’ tenure rights and loosen the licensure process, making it easier for “under-qualified instructors to remain in the classroom for several years in a row,” Rep. Carlos Mariani (DFL-St. Paul) said.

With the Supreme Court expected to deal a major blow to public-sector unions in a decision on Janus v. AFSCME next year, advocates for public schools worry that what’s happening in Wisconsin could spread to states like Minnesota – and spread quickly – if teachers’ collective voice is weakened.

“Our general approach in Minnesota has been to work with public-sector unions in order to create services that work well for the public, and we think over time that’s paid off,” Mariani said. “We watch with a lot of concern what’s happening in our neighbor state.”

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