City teachers protest as contract talks stall
WOONSOCKET – Members of the Woonsocket Teachers’ Guild took their concerns over contract negotiations outside on Friday, holding a large informational demonstration on the sidewalk opposite the Museum of Work & Culture and River Falls Restaurant.
The choice of that site was purposeful given that Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt was to hold a campaign fundraiser with supporters in the upstairs banquet hall at River Falls Friday evening.
About 200 union teachers, paraprofessionals and their supporters started making their way up and down the sidewalk around 5 p.m. while carrying signs pleading the case for a pay raise. The demonstrators received a steady stream of honking horns of support from the cars and trucks passing by.
“We’re doing this to heighten awareness on the situation facing teachers in the negotiations with the city,” Glenn Boisvert, a physical education teacher for the Gov. Aram Pothier and Citizens Memorial elementary schools
and coordinator for the demonstration, explained.
“As of right now we are waiting for a mediator to be appointed by the state,” Boisvert said. Both sides have requested mediation as a next step to the impasse declared at the end of August; Boisvert said the state Department of Labor must now appoint one.
“It is a good way to express our concerns to the public who may not know what our concerns are,” Boisvert said.
The WTG members carried signs ranging from “Honk to Support Public Education” to “Woonsocket Teachers Give 100% And Are Worth More Than Zero Percent.”
Teachers have complained that among the proposals on the table from administration officials, one included no pay raise. Union members were disappointed with the reported offer since they have already accepted level funded salaries the past five years.
Woonsocket Teachers Guild President Jeff Partington asked the City Council earlier this week to support an increase in the city’s $16 million contribution to schools so that work on settling a new contract can move forward.
As he watched the WTG’s membership gathered on the sidewalk near Baldelli-Hunt’s fundraiser Friday evening, Partington noted he has not spoken the mayor in several months. He said the last time he did, back in April, she had asked whether negotiations should be stopped to allow a new school committee to enter the talks.
As for the mediation effort, Partington confirmed the WTG is still awaiting word a mediator has been selected.
“I have heard it happens quickly but I haven’t seen anything yet and we are just waiting,” he said.
The large gathering of teachers also drew a contingent of Woonsocket Police Department members, including Chief Thomas F. Oates III, newly sworn-in Deputy Chief Michael Lemoine and on-duty shift supervisors and patrol officers, to ensure everyone remained safe, as the demonstration happened at the evening rush hour for the busy Market Square area. One minor traffic accident was reported have occurred between passing vehicles but no injuries were reported.
“It is a demonstration and I have been to a lot of these,” Oates said. “We are monitoring it and members of the department are here for the safety of everyone involved,” Oates said. “There is a lot of traffic here and we don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he said.
The guild members stayed on the sidewalk and did not enter the street and Woonsocket police officers were posted at the intersections around the area to ensure the demonstrators and any patrons of the area’s restaurants could cross safely.
As for the demonstrators, Oates said he did not see any issues that would be a concern.
“They are all well behaved and all well within what they are allowed to do for informational picketing so everything is fine,” Oates said. ———
The line of teachers and teacher assistants were eager to voice their concerns to anyone who asked.
“It’s just frustrating, it’s just frustrating the amount of sacrifice we’ve made and they just don’t care,” said Charles Myers, the construction technology teacher for the Woonsocket Area Career and Technical Center’s popular student building construction program.
Myers is in his 21st year teaching for Woonsocket and said he doesn’t mind making less because of his work with his students, but added there does come a point when the lack of respect of what local teachers do on a daily basis does become a concern.
“I think it is time to take care of the people who really helped you to balance your budget,” Myers said while noting the teachers’ willingness to accept a pay freeze as the city worked out its budget problems with a state-appointed budget commission.
Paying teachers is an investment for a community like Woonsocket, Myers said. “It is an investment in your city, it is an investment in your students and it is an investment in the city’s future,” he said.
Myers said he wouldn’t want to go to another district to complete in his career but said there is a point where that does become an option “when you are just not getting the support and respect for what you are doing.”
Also on the line were students wanting to support their teach- ers like Germani Rosario, a high school senior and member of the school’s Villa Novan newspaper staff.
“I wanted to support the teachers because I think it is real nonsense that the mayor wants to give them a zero percent pay raise,” Rosario said. “I think they should be able to get a raise. Some teachers have been here 20 years and having to deal with this is crazy,” he said.
Julie Ozanian, a ninth grader, and Taitum Ozanian, a senior, also joined the picketers in support of their high school teachers and family members who work for the department.
“I think it is really unfair because 10 years ago Woonsocket was in need of money and the teachers gave up raises. Now they are among the lowest paid in the state,” Julie Ozanian said. “I don’t know the specific numbers but they should definitely get a raise,” she added.
Melanie Cotnoir, a former city student in the line and now a seventh grade teacher at the Villa Nova Middle School, said she just started out in teaching this year after graduating from Rhode Island College and said it was a bit of a surprise to be in the middle of a contract dispute as a new teacher.
“It is different,” Cotnoir said. “But I do want to support the veteran teachers and I do think teachers deserve a raise,” she said. Cotnoir said she had a unique perspective on the demonstration given that she had many of the teachers in the line while she was attending local schools. She said her brother, Gregory, who went from Woonsocket High School to URI and now is a microbiologist with a company in Massachusetts, would also agreed that the local teachers should be supported, she said.
“We did well in Woonsocket and it is a good education program,” Cotnoir said.
Mayor Baldelli-Hunt’s mother, Sandrina Baldelli, said her daughter was on the way to the fundraiser just before 6 p.m. as she watched the demonstration from the parking lot of the Museum of Work & Culture with a few friends.
“She’s not here yet but she is on her way,” Baldelli said while relating the mayor had been on local radio shows before heading to the fundraising event.
The mayor’s mother said she believed Baldelli-Hunt should be credited with running the city well during her time in office.
“The city is in better shape than it has been in 10 years and I think over the past five years that she has been in office, she has done a great job,” Baldelli said. ———
As she arrived at the fundraiser just before 6 p.m., the mayor could see the demonstration underway while talking with supporters for a moment outside the front entrance of River Falls.
When asked what she thought of the picketing, Baldelli-Hunt said she was “just wondering whether or not the president of the union is informing them of what the offer was to them, which we consider was a fair offer.
“I think he may be withholding some information, but they indicated that they were at impasse and through Rhode Island general law, if you are at impasse, that means you have to get a mediator,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “So they have a right to demonstrate, but demonstrating is not going to make a difference because what they indicated was that they were at impasse – and when you are at impasse Rhode Island General Law mandates you contact the Department of Labor and Training and you request a mediator. That is what was done so now we are waiting for the mediator,” the mayor said.
Baldelli-Hunt said she had not received any indication yet as to when the mediation sessions would begin.
“The negotiating team was a strong negotiating team, the superintendent of schools (Patrick McGee), the chairman of the school committee (Soren Seale), Brad Peryea, the finance director, Deputy (City) Finance director Cindy Johnson, and Councilman (Richard) Fagnant, so they negotiated 16 meetings, and the Woonsocket Teachers Guild said they were at impasse,” Baldelli-Hunt said.
Asked what she would say to the teachers demonstrating outside, Baldelli-Hunt said, “If they wanted to go back to the table, they shouldn’t have called impasse.”