City teachers working without contracts
Impasse declared after lengthy negotiations; sides trying to hammer out a deal
WOONSOCKET — Returning to school without a contract for the first time in decades Monday, the Woonsocket Teachers Guild has declared an impasse in collective bargaining, ending talks that began five months ago.
WTG President Jeffrey Parting- ton said the impasse was declared after he received an e-mail from Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s negotiating team on Friday containing the administration’s last best offer on wages.
“I’d rather not share the gory details,” said Partington. “They’ve given us their best offer. We’ve given them our best offer, and we’re far apart.”
After the two sides met approximately 16 times since April, no new bargaining sessions are scheduled.
And Partington said the other shoe might drop in the coming days with some type of job-related work action in response to the impasse. Union members were expected to vote late yesterday on the details, which could call for anything from a work-to-rule order or informa- tional picketing to a possible work stoppage at some point. “It depends what they want to do,” said Partington. “I don’t know. It depends how upset they are.”
Meanwhile, students are to begin filtering back to class after the summer break on Wednesday. Teachers reported for the first time yesterday for orientation and are in classrooms again today for professional devel- opment and training.
While Partington couldn’t predict how the rank and file would respond to news of the impasse, he says that after working most of the last nine years without a raise, union members are losing patience with the administration. It’s not uncommon to hear the administration boast about
the city’s economic resurgence these days, but union members are still suffering from a fiscal hangover induced by the austerity-minded reign of the Budget Commission, becoming the lowest-paid teachers in the state.
“We want to go to work, cooperate with the administration and give the students of Woonsocket the best education possible,” Partington said. “Teachers simply want a fair wage for all that they do. We know that the city has the means to do this. Let’s hope the city sees it that way. Let’s hope the mayor decides to invest in public education.”
Schools Supt. Patrick McGee said he has been meeting with members of his administrative team to plan for whatever type of job action the WTG chooses.
McGee said he doubts teachers will opt for a walkout, but he said educators are preparing for a work-to-rule order. That means teachers will likely work to the letter of their contract – no uncompensated before- or after-school time on the clock.
“Work to rule means the staff just follows the contract,” said McGee. “When their instructional day ends, they would leave. They might not come in earlier than they have to in the morning. We want to make sure we don’t have children left unsupervised at the end of the day. It’s a little more challenging at the elementary level.”
McGee said he was disappointed the two sides were unable to come to terms before the start of the school year.
“All I can say is I’m disappointed we were unable to reach an agreement at this time,” he said. “I was hoping we would have been able to reach an agreement before the start of the school year.”
Lawyer Charles Ruggerio, the chief negotiator, issue a prepared statement in reaction to the WTG’s announcement.
“We are disappointed that our negotiations with the Woonsocket Teachers Guild towards a new collective bargaining agreement have reached an impasse,” he said. “Over the course of the last several months our entire negotiating committee has worked incredibly hard to arrive at a fair agreement for both the teachers and the taxpayers of the City of Woonsocket.”
Ruggerio said that after the work of the Budget Commission, “it is important that any agreement reached reflects the fiscal realities still facing the City of Woonsocket.”
While Baldelli-Hunt declined to comment on the WTG’s statement, she was incensed by one union leader’s post on social media, blaming her for canceling parent-teacher conferences last night. The conferences were postponed by McGee – not her – and for good reason: the union scheduled a meeting to vote on the job action that would have prevented many of them from seeing parents.
McGee said the conferences have been rescheduled for Sept. 11.
According to Partington, city teachers have received one raise of just 2 percent that took effect in the final year of their last contract – 2017-2018, which expired on June 30. Prior to that, the last time city teachers and paraprofessionals had a raise was in 2008-2009.
Cognizant of the fiscal challenges the city faced during the reign of the Budget Commission, the WTG, in a spirit of cooperation, agreed to take a pay freeze for all but the final year of a five-year contract when it negotiated with the state-appointed panel in 2012, according to Partington. As part of its agreement with the commission, the WTG negotiated a 2 percent increase in the final year.
The contract also represented about $3 million a year in union givebacks – most in the form of healthcare benefits, according to Partington.
Appointed by the state Division of Municipal Finance, the commission’s charge was to prevent the city from lapsing into bankruptcy. It held sway in the city, usurping all the powers of elected officials, from May 2012 to March 2015.
The WTG is the largest employees union in the city, representing about 525 teachers in addition to roughly 125 paraprofessionals and classroom support workers.
In addition to McGee, the mayor’s negotiating team includes Woonsocket Education Department Finance Director Brad Peryea; Providence School Department Deputy Legal Counsel Charles Ruggerio; School Committee Chairman Soren Seale; City Councilman Richard Fagnant; Deputy Controller Cindy Johnson; Fiscal Adviser Paul Luba; and Janet Sullivan.
While Partington wouldn’t say precisely how much of a salary increase the WTG seeks for its members, the union wants a three-year contract, according to the WTG president. He says salaries are the only component of the contract that remains unresolved.
The failure to conclude the talks with a new collective bargaining agreement in a timely fashion means teachers started a new academic year this week without a contract for the first time in about 30 years, he said.
“There had been significant progress on just about everything else – the rest of the contract is pretty much complete,” said Partington. “But money is the key factor.”