Teachers planning for a vote

Archdiocese, union hope to avert strike

Talks continued during the weekend as the both sides sought to avert a possible strike and delay in the opening of the school year for archdiocesan high schools.

Both the teachers’ union and representatives from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have been at the bargaining table for days and vowed to talk through the weekend as they seek agreement on a new deal. Teachers will gather on Tuesday morning for a vote.

The union, Association of Catholic Teachers 1776 (ACT), represents more than 600 lay Catholic high school teachers, who saw their latest one-year year contract expire at midnight Aug. 31.

School is scheduled to begin

for nearly 12,000 students at the 17 archdiocesan high schools Wednesday — if teachers agree to a new deal. The union has indicated they do not want another one-year deal, as has been the case with the last several contracts. Rankand-file are insisting on a multi-year deal.

Representatives of ACT 1776 and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Office of Catholic Education (OCE) met Friday to discuss the latest labor-management agreement to no avail.

Neither the archdiocese nor ACT 1776 President Ritz Schwartz on Friday would provide specifics on what the bargaining points are, but medical benefits and salary are both on the table.

Schwartz said ACT has been working with oneyear contracts for each of the last four years and that teachers are “very strong on wanting more than a oneyear contract.”

“I hope we will be able to get this done,” said Schwartz in a Friday email.

According to the archdiocese, the office of Catholic education and ACT began talks in April with 15 joint negotiation sessions since then. A letter sent to ACT members on Aug. 27 said proposals were discussed with the OCE for a second time on Aug. 17 and 20.

“It had taken time, time we really do not have, to get through the language,” read the letter signed by Schwartz. “This is due, mainly, to the fact that the system placed everything back on the table that was in its original proposal.

“Nothing had been

agreed to.”

A statement released by Archdiocese Associate Director of Communications Stephanie Brophy on Friday shed some light on those proposals.

“The proposals offered to ACT by OCE ensure no teacher will experience a rise in cost for health benefits,” read the statement. “Salaries for high school teachers in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia are consistently ranked among the top in the nation, according to the annual survey completed by the National Association of Catholic School Teachers.”

For the 2017-18 contract that expired Friday, it was reported that salary and benefit contributions were not areas of contention for those negotiations, with health plan co-pays not increasing and all teachers receiving a $1,200 raise. That contract also bumped the

starting salary for teachers from $38,000 to $39,000. Top of scale teachers make $80,505. A teacher with 20 years experience makes $54,480 a year.

Teachers were given more professional development days as part of that contract and the teacher work day will be extended by 15 minutes for the 201819 school year.

The last strike by archdiocesan teachers took place in 2011, when teachers hit the bricks and disrupted the first two weeks of school.

Contract negotiations affect full-time teachers in the 17 archdiocesan high schools including Lansdale Catholic, Cardinal O’Hara, Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast, Bishop Shanahan, and Father Judge. Elementary and regional school teachers are not unionized.