The chairman of the board said School Committee members have job commitments.
JAY – An effort to reach a new contract between the teachers’ union and the school negotiating team ended “quickly” Wednesday with no resolution.
Representatives of the Jay Education Association bargaining unit showed up for a mediation session with state mediator John Alfano. The School Committee’s hired chief negotiator Ann Chapman and Jay School Business Manager Deb Holland were present to represent the School Department’s negotiating team. No School Committee member could get time away from their jobs to participate.
Teachers have been working without a new contract since September of 2002 and were “hopeful” that the latest mediation session would produce an agreement, according to a JEA negotiations update released to its members Wednesday.
“Although no committee member was present at the Wednesday morning meeting, I was in touch by phone with our negotiating consultant,” School Committee Chairman Clint Brooks said. He had just returned home from working two 16-hours days. “Board members have job commitments and are generally not in a position to have substitutes available to cover those responsibilities when unanticipated conflicts occur.”
The school system hires substitute teachers at about $55 a day, so union members can attend negotiations, Brooks said.
The teachers’ union has been waiting for a new offer from the School Committee for two months, the JEA release stated.
JEA had previously proposed to accept recommendations from an independent fact-finding panel that were issued Jan. 31 to settle the contract in its entirety. The fact-finders “recommendations, which represented a compromise between both parties’ proposals, were rejected by the School Committee pertaining to wages and health insurance due to the negotiations” team considering the deal too expensive for Jay taxpayers.
“We came prepared to again accept the fact-finders’ recommendations with some new modifications,” JEA chief negotiator Jamie Robinson stated in the release. “Unfortunately, the new proposal from the School Committee doesn’t come close to the fact-finders’ recommendations. There has to be some give and take in this process. With the School committee’s representatives, it’s all take and no give making a new agreement seemingly impossible.”
JEA stated it was also “puzzling and disappointing that no members” of the School Committee attended the mediation session.
“It’s our view that the School Committee does not want a deal with the teachers as their latest proposal is far different and much worse than that offered administrators and school custodian/bus drivers and food service staff in two other sets of negotiations,” the release stated.
JEA members questioned whether the school board is “negotiating in good faith” and stated they were considering options to pursue those concerns through the Maine Labor Relations Board.
“If the School Committee and their representatives are serious about reaching a deal, they need to present a realistic proposal,” the release stated. “If not, it appears we are headed to interest arbitration, a second year of working without a contract, and additional legal expenses for the Jay School Committee on top of the over $65,000 in taxpayers dollars already spent.”
The School Committee has spent in excess of $65,000 since November of 2001 for Chapman’s services and fees to negotiate five contracts, including the teachers.
“The JEA seems to believe that their interpretation of negotiating proceedings be unilaterally applied to the process, but I would suggest that their characterization of `all give and no take’ is somewhat skewed,” Brooks said. “I am confused with their attempts to compare proposals between contracts of various bargaining units. Anyone possessing even a basic understanding of the negotiating process would realize that this lends nothing towards reaching an agreement.”
School Committee members concur with the suggestion that proposals need to be realistic, Brooks said. “We further believe that both parties should be bound to this endeavor,” he said.
Brooks said he appreciated the commitment both parties have made toward reaching an amicable conclusion to these negotiations and believe that it will be achieved.
Comments are no longer available on this story