WEA Issues Strike Date for Monday

The Wissahickon Education Alliance-Support union has issued a strike date for Monday, Oct. 29, unless the Wissahickon School Board changes their position on the bargaining process.

At Monday night's school board meeting, with well over 100 WEA members in attendance, the school board voted unanimously to adopt resolution W-10-12, which begins the process to procure proposals from outside vendors to replace the approximately 280 union support staff positions.

The district also filed Unfair Labor Practice against the WEA for a refusal to bargain.

According to an e-mail from Anne Marie McDowell, co-president of the WEA, "The WEA Negotiator Drew Muir requested several bargaining dates that are well documented by email during the month of September and the district did not respond."

She continued that in April the district came very close to having Unfair Labor Practice filed against them for not providing availability dates for negotiators to meet, and as an "act of good faith" the two sides entered into Fact Finding instead of coming to the bargaining table.

"During the presentation given by the district's attorney last evening, it was stated that the Board could not possibly accept the report because some of the dates in the report had expired. … Again, the WEA is more than willing to work on the

language in the report once the district accepts the terms as we have done many times in the past," McDowell said in an e-mail.

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Read more about the ongoing contract negotiations

Wissahickon Holds Fact Finding Hearing for WEA Negotiations

Wissahickon Superintendent Letter on WEA Negotiations

Letter: Working Towards Compromise

Letter to The Editor: Questions to the Wissahickon School Board

Co-President of WEA Expresses Disappointment Towards Wissahickon School Board

Board Statement: Union Needs to Come to the Bargaining Table

Wissahickon SD: Contractors Could Replace Striking Staff