Teachers union, city schools negotiate, hope to avoid a strike
Representatives for Pittsburgh Public Schools and the teachers’ union will meet again at the bargaining table Friday in an attempt to reach a contract agreement and avert a potential strike.
The negotiation session is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at the Downtown office for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mediation, said school district Solicitor Ira Weiss. Negotiations are expected to last all day.
“We’re prepared to bargain until whatever time it takes to get to a tentative agreement,” Mr. Weiss said.
The Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers — which represents about 2,400 teachers, 565 paraprofessionals and 20 technical-clerical employees — voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike Monday. The strike authorization does not necessarily mean a strike will occur, just that the union leadership has the ability to call for one if an
agreement can’t be reached with the school district. The PFT would have to give at least 48 hours notice before striking.
“We are absolutely hopeful to make great progress tomorrow,” PFT president Nina Esposito-Visgitis said Thursday. “That is our primary goal. Of course, our teachers want to be in the classroom with their students where they belong. We’re going to work really hard to come to an agreement that’s good for schools, that’s good for students and good for educators.”
At the bargaining table for the school district Friday will be Mr. Weiss; superintendent Anthony Hamlet; school board members Cynthia Falls and Sylvia Wilson; district chief financial officer Ronald Joseph; Jody Spolar, the retired head of the district’s human resources department; and chief negotiator and special labor counsel Mike Palumbo. The union’s negotiating team includes Ms. Esposito-Visgitis; PFT vice president William Hileman; PFT parliamentarian Harold Grant; and attorneys Stephen and Noah Jordan. Joe Lamenza, regional director for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mediation, will be mediating the negotiations, Mr. Weiss said.
Contract negotiations between the school district and its teachers began after fiveyear contracts for the union members ran out June 30, 2015. The teachers have been working under the terms of a two-year contract extension that expired in June 2017.
An independent factfinder issued a report on the contract proposals in November, which was accepted by the school board but rejected by the union.
The arbitrator suggested raises of 2 percent to earlychildhood teachers and 10 percent for athletic coaches. The union wanted the earlychildhood teachers on the school-age scale and a larger salary increase for coaches that wasn’t specified in its summary.
Union leaders at the time also were upset that the factfinder suggested granting scheduling power to school principals, a provision they said would result in “increasingly poor morale” for members.
But the arbitrator agreed that teachers should be able to transfer schools yearly, instead of every three years, as the district proposed.
District leaders say the ability to give principals scheduling power and removing the “teacher churn” clause of the current contract — which allows teaching positions filled after Aug. 1 to be posted again the next year — remain the two biggest sticking points of the negotiations. The issue of teacher churn in particular results in high turnover rates, particularly at some of the most struggling schools, district officials argue.
“We would like very much to get an agreement,” Mr. Weiss said. “The last thing the district wants is a work stoppage, which will interrupt the education of children and disrupt the lives of thousand of people. But the district believes it must have the tools to put the teachers it believes are the best teachers in front of the students that need the most and to have as little staff turnover as possible.”
He added that the negotiators are close on the “economics” issues, like salary and health care benefits. According to Pennsylvania Department of Education data, the average salary for a classroom teacher in Pittsburgh was $75,261.83 for the 2016-17 school year.
“We’re prepared to stay there as long as it takes and work for a fair contract,” Ms. Esposito-Visgitis said. “I wish there were only two sticking points. However, the PFT is going in there tomorrow to talk all of the issues presented and proposed for our three units. We are continuing to discuss a number of items that were in the fact-finding [report].”
Pittsburgh teachers haven’t gone on strike in more than 40 years. The last one lasted for eight weeks, from December 1975 to January 1976.
The union last voted to authorize a strike in October 2007, but a walkout was averted when the union and district agreed on a contract.
The length of a potential teacher strike would be determined by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, because per state law, students are required to have 180 days of instruction between July 1 and June 15 each school year.
A-Plus Schools, a Pittsburgh education watchdog and advocacy group, has been compiling a list of local organizations that have offered to help families with childcare, meals and other services if the strike happens, spokeswoman Michelle Massie said. As of Thursday afternoon, the list included 11 groups throughout the city, which Ms. Massie estimated could help a few thousand students. “We’re hearing that a lot of organizations, particularly those that service prekindergarten students, are already at capacity,” she said. “There’s just not enough room.” Ms. Esposito-Visgitis stressed that the union’s leaders and negotiating team understand that a strike could be a major hardship for parents and PPS’ more than 23,000 students. “We have been very careful and thoughtful in weighing everything that occurs and everything that has not occurred,” she said. “Tomorrow our team will work together to determine next steps and continue steps that have already been initiated. We’ll certainly not be pushed into a hasty decision that does not allow for proper thought processes and planning for the good of our members and the good of our schools.”