SCHOOLS were shut once again on Monday morning for 1,500 students in Prospect Heights School District 23, in Chicago, Illinois.
The increasingly combative teachers strike, the first in the northwest suburban district’s 100-year history, was called on September 16, after the school board and Prospect Heights Education Association failed to agree on a new three-year contract.
It closed schools for three days last week and is continuing this week after an acrimonious Sunday night meeting between the Prospect Heights Education Association (PHEA), which is the local teachers union, and the district’s board of education.
At the late-night negotiation session the PHEA rejected a demand from the District 23 board of education for a two-week ‘cooling off’ period during which teachers would have returned to the classroom while negotiations continued.
In a statement posted on the District 23 website, board of education President Mari-Lynn Peters claimed: ‘The Prospect Heights School District 23 Board of Education shares the concerns of our parents, teachers and community about the duration of the strike and its impact on our students.
‘We have been asked numerous times, “Could teachers return to the classroom while the board of education and the PHEA continue to negotiate?” ‘The answer is YES,’ she claimed. But that was not the answer from the striking teachers of the PHEA.
Peters claimed a ‘cooling off’ period would have allowed the board of education and PHEA, to, ‘continue to negotiate under the guidance of a federal mediator in the hopes of achieving resolution – while our students would return to the classroom where they belong, ending the disruption to their school and activities.
‘We truly believe that under this “cooling off” proposal, our students are winners and neither side loses. We will continue to negotiate in good faith for a contract that supports both the educational quality and the financial stability of our district,’ she claimed.
However, the union filed an unfair labour practice charge on September 17 with the Illinois Educational Labour Relations Board precisely accusing her of failing to ‘bargain in good faith’. The union declared that, ‘the board of education refused to meet unless the union stopped proposing a salary schedule’.
The union accused Peters of refusing to bargain and says that District 23 Superintendent Debbie Wilson and Peters, ‘refused to let the union bargaining team into the building to negotiate on the evening of September 16th’. School was cancelled on Wednesday to Friday of last week for the 1,570 students in pre-kindergarten through 8th grade at the district’s four schools: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Betsy Ross and Anne Sullivan Elementary Schools and Douglas MacArthur Middle School.
Meanwhile, the Rock Valley College faculty members in Rockwood Illinois, were walking the picket line Monday morning and students missed a fourth day of classes — as a result of the union rejecting a five-year labour contract offer. Representatives for the 160-member Faculty Association would not disclose the margin of votes.
Faculty members have been on strike since Wednesday against being charged extra for health insurance. Union President Michael Youngblood said, ahead of the meeting, that the union would have called off the strike had members approved the mediator’s offer. But they overwhelmingly rejected the offer.
Representatives from the union and the college trustees met on Tuesday to consider approval of ‘implementation over impasse’. The management threatened that loans to 297 Rock Valley (RV) students would be delayed if faculty members failed to return to work by Wednesday. They also warned that grants and other financial aid would be delayed for more than 2,000 RVC students if the strike extends beyond September 28.
However, the faculty will not be returning to work unless they’re able to negotiate a contract – even if the board approves an impasse, Youngblood warned. An increase in the percentage of the cost faculty members would be required to pay for their health insurance continues to be a major sticking point for union members,’ he said.
‘Faculty members want to see a contract that they feel balances higher health care costs with salary increases,’ he insisted. ‘It would just cause people to move backward in terms of total compensation,’ Youngblood added. Spousal carve out means that some employees would have to pay for health care for their spouses, and then they’ll have more deductibles, more out-of-pocket expenses.
‘So there’s a lot more in play than just the salary numbers and the insurance numbers on the proposal.’ Youngblood also said the community supports the faculty members’ struggle.
‘We’ve gotten a lot of community support. We’ve gotten a lot of support in terms of our social media, we get a lot of support on the lines.’
Kenzo Shibata, media director for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, which is advising the Faculty Association during the strike, said: ‘Faculty members want to go back to work and resume life as normal, but they also want a fair deal.’
Elsewhere, in Washington, teachers in Seattle on Sunday ratified a new three-year contract putting an end to a labour dispute that included a week-long strike and a series of marathon bargaining sessions overseen by state mediators.
Rank-and-file teachers and support staff in the 5,000-member union, the Seattle Education Association, ‘overwhelmingly approved’ the accord that consists of pay rises totalling 9.5 per cent over the life of the contract, according to union spokesman Rich Wood. Teachers ratified the contract four days after they ended a strike last Wednesday.
The strike marked the first labour-related disruption of classes in three decades for Seattle’s public schools. Negotiators for the teachers union and the Seattle school district had reached a tentative agreement last Tuesday. Union leaders voted that same day to endorse the pact and immediately end the strike.
The union had originally sought pay raises totalling 18 per cent over three years. The 9.5 per cent in the new contract is on top of a state-approved 4.8 per cent cost-of-living adjustment over three years. The teachers also won contract language ending the practice of linking teacher evaluations to student test scores, as well as compensation for instructional time being added to the school day.
