Board Statement: Union Needs to Come to the Bargaining Table

Editor's Note: This is the official statement of the Wissahickon School Board regarding the WEA-Support contract negotiations, which was read at the Monday night Wissahickon School Board meeting by District Solicitor Scott Wolpert.

The Wissahickon School Board is aware that many of you have come to tonight’s meeting to voice your concern about the status of negotiations between the School Board and our Support Staff Union, and to express concerns about the School Board resolving to solicit proposals for various non-professional services to be done by outside vendors.

Since the 2008 economic collapse, the Wissahickon School District has been sustaining challenges to its economic sustainability. In particular, the District has been required to fund a more expensive health benefit program and to fund geometrically increasing State retirement system benefits in order to fund our State’s underfunded retirement system. These healthcare and retirement benefits far exceed the types of benefits that most of our taxpayers receive working for non-governmental bodies. In fact, Support Staff Union Members who work only 4 hours per day are eligible to receive our very rich health benefit program.

Complicating things is that in 2006, the Pennsylvania State Legislature has capped the ability of school districts in Pennsylvania to raise taxes beyond a specified index (the Act 1 index). In 2006, the Act 1 index was 4.9%, but that index has plummeted to the current 1.7% amount that is in effect for the 2013-2014 budget year. This elected Board is faced with a very difficult dilemma. On the one hand, it seeks to provide its employees with fair wages and benefits and on the other hand, it needs use prudence in not incurring expenditures that exceed the Act 1 index. If that were the case, namely, if the Board would consistently commit to expenditures that exceed new revenue, the Board would eat into its fund balance and endanger the sustainability and economic viability of this District. This Board has pledged not to have that happen and it believes it has a fiduciary obligation to ensure that the District remains sustainable in the future even in light of the extreme costs we are facing. The District cannot simply continue to do business the same way when its costs for retirement have increased from $0.02 on every wage dollar to as much as $0.26 on every wage dollar that the District will be spending within the next few years.

Indeed, we ask this community that is not employed by this District the following questions:

1. How many of you are paid at the top of your industry? As you might be aware, our support staff is paid among the top school districts in Montgomery County, which have historically been the top paying school districts in the State.
2. How many of you in this community are eligible to receive a health benefit program after only working 4 hours per day or 20 hours per week? This is not only unheard of in the private sector; it is unheard of amongst our comparison school districts.
3. How many of our taxpayers will be prepared to pay for the $1,875,000.00 cost and forget about all of the other needed expenditures of the District?
4. How many of you believe that it is prudent to completely ignore the potential cost savings in subcontracting services (transportation, secretarial, custodial, and the like) simply because we have always done our business using our employees in this way?

As for our negotiations with the Support Staff Union, those negotiations began in January 2012. As we have placed on the website, the Union representing our valued support staff has refused to meet face-to-face other than on one occasion that preceded a Fact Finding process that took place in May 2012. Typically, prior to going to Fact Finding, the parties at the bargaining table attempt to narrow down issues and then resort to a third party to make a decision. In this case, that did not happen as direct result of the tactics being used by the Union’s business agent, Drew Muir. He simply went straight to Fact Finding, and then after the Fact Finding process when most unions and boards use the Fact Finding process as a framework to attempt to get to a settlement, the Union dropped the ball and indicated that it would not meet over the summer.

It was not until the end of September that the Union attempted to resurrect the Fact Finder’s Recommendation that contains many provisions that no longer have applicability. The Recommendation, for example, recommended an early retirement incentive that would have potentially saved the District some money if retirements would have taken place by August 1, 2012. That has long since past.

The only way to work these types of issues out is not to come to a Board demonstration at a public meeting but to come to the bargaining table.

Indeed, the Board’s negotiator and the Board have invited the Union on many occasions to come to the bargaining table and, in fact, invited the Union to come yesterday to a bargaining session. The Board’s negotiator also invited Mr. Muir to have the State Mediator develop a Mediator’s Proposal to resolve our differences. Mr. Muir continues to be silent and refuse that approach.

Mr. Muir has consistently refused to come to a bargaining session and merely insists that the Board’s only choice is to accept this now stale Fact Finder’s Recommendation. The Union’s position makes no sense and is inconsistent with the most basic of bargaining principles.

This morning, the District’s labor counsel has filed an Unfair Labor Practice against the Support Staff Union as the result of its failing to bargain in good faith in this process and refusing to come to bargaining sessions. A copy of that Unfair Labor Practice Charge is available for community review.

As the result of the Union’s strategy, the Board will not consider revoting on the stale Fact Finder’s Recommendation and at a minimum, seeks to have a bargaining session to resolve our differences.

We have reason to believe that the Union has taken a strike vote last Thursday and now seeks to go on strike sometime this week.

Who will get hurt as the result of this strike? The answers are as follows:

• First and foremost, our most fragile students will get hurt. Students who need one-on-one services because of their IEPs or Section 504 plans will be deprived of those services or have different individuals providing those services during the course of a work stoppage.
• Our parents and students will be deprived of the transportation to and from school and to and from our vocational school and other programs that are necessary. Many of our community member’s work and this will pose a serious imposition upon them.
• Parents of non-public students will be deprived of transportation services, which will also place hardships on the many families in our community.
• Our buildings will not be cleaned at the level that we expect.
• Our administrators will have to devote time to providing specialized services for students and assisting on bus service instead of dealing with broader building-based curricular and other issues that are necessary for the delivery of our educational program.

We are frankly at a complete loss why the Union is being led on this terrible path of confrontation instead of sitting down like adults and negotiating a successor Contract. Stonewalling and refusing to bargain will not get this Union anywhere and will not get our community anywhere.

As for the Board’s resolution to solicit proposals, we have read a few emails and/or communications that express a concern that the District is going to subcontract Bargaining Unit services. That is by no means a guarantee and we are simply soliciting proposals to see the difference in costs between delivering the services using an outside vendor versus using our own District employees. We may indeed find out that our current costs are competitive with the private sector.

Under Pennsylvania law, we cannot subcontract Bargaining Unit services unless we negotiate face-to-face with the Union to impasse over that prospect. We will need to talk with the Union face-to-face over this issue and it cannot automatically happen.

We suggest that all of the hysteria be put aside and that we address this issue as professionals should address it – we should sit down and bargain a resolution instead of dealing with a now defunct Fact Finder’s Recommendation, and then threatening a work stoppage without even having had intelligent discussions at the bargaining table.

The net effect of this will hurt our children, as well as the support staff who will lose pay and will have to pay for benefits during the course of a work stoppage. It is our sincere hope that the Union will, at the very least, come to the table to begin the dialogue which is in the best interest of the students and community of the Wissahickon School District.