Negotiations roll into Memorial Day weekend with more talks

UNION CITY >> After five straight days of a teachers’ strike at Union City and Hayward schools, negotiators for the New Haven Unified School District and its teachers union headed into the Memorial Day weekend hoping to avert a second week of picketing.

Negotiators said they planned to bring sleeping bags to Friday’s talks, a signal that they intend to stay at the table until a deal could be reached.

“We’re negotiating for our students,” E. Pace Lash, the union’s bargaining chair, said in a written statement. “Teachers are our students’ best resource. We have a reasonable proposal for professional pay and this district can afford our offer.”

School district spokesman John Mattos said Friday a full bargaining session was expected to start later in the afternoon.

“Like the union, we are hoping to reach an agreement today,” Mattos said. “I don’t see us walking away from a productive bargaining session either.”

Meanwhile, union members continued to picket Friday, lining the Interstate 880 bridge at the Alvarado-Niles exit and other major intersections, headed to the Alameda County Office of Education in Hayward to support their bargaining leaders, according to the teachers association.

Tensions in the teachers strike — the first in New Haven’s history — reached a fever pitch Wednesday, culminating with a boisterous school board meeting where parents, educators and students gave officials an earful and demanded pay raises for striking teachers.

Some people who spoke at the meeting called district board members and Superintendent Arlando Smith disgusting, shameful and arrogant.

At one point, shortly after the crowd burst into a chant of “shame on you,” the meeting was adjourned by the board president, and Smith and some other officials walked out through a side door while a young student was speaking. Smith later returned to hear out more people and had a long exchange with members of the crowd.

The teachers union — which represents nearly 600 teachers, counselors, and nurses, among others — is asking for a 10 percent raise, split between the current 2018-19 school year and the coming 201920 school year.

The district last offered a onetime 3 percent bonus for the current school year and a 1 percent salary raise for the coming school year plus 0.5 percent for every additional $1 million it receives in state funding that year, up to 1 percent total.

Teachers initially sought a 20 percent salary increase over two years and the district didn’t offer any raise.

Teachers in New Haven — which serves about 11,000 students in a dozen schools in Union City and South Hayward — are the highest paid in the county, with the average salary at $96,554 annually. The lowest paid teachers get $72,886 and highest make $119,350.

But teachers say having to pay their full health care bills out of pocket — about $20,000 for many — while contending with the Bay Area’s high cost of living, cuts significantly into their ability to get by.

Alameda County Supervisor Richard Valle, a former Union City councilman, stepped in Wednesday and Thursday to meet with both sides in an effort to jumpstart negotiations, which had resumed Sunday in a last-minute effort to avert a strike but were called off later that day.

Joe Ku’e Angeles, the teachers union president, said the meetings with Valle are “a conversation about how to restart negotiations.”

Jaime Patiño, a Union City councilman, was at a rally on Wednesday to show teachers he supports them. He said he’s happy to hear more discussions are in the works again.

“Not being at the table should not be an option,” he said. “They need to get in there until they pound out an agreement.”

Candice Simpson, a substitute teacher who also has kids in the district, said teachers go “above and beyond” for students and put the onus on the district to increase its offer.

“These teachers are like family to us. They are with our kids more than we are with our kids,” she said.

The large group of people at Wednesday’s rally then marched to the district offices where the board meeting was being held. Along neighborhood streets and Alvarado-Niles Road, the chain of supporters was multiple blocks long, chanting in unison and waving flags and banners at passing cars, garnering honks in support.

Many told trustees this week they are upset with the way the district has handled negotiations.

“I’ve never respected the New Haven school board less,” parent Kyle Smith told trustees. “You squandered your credibility with that zero percent offer. Zero. A big, fat, steaming goose egg of disrespect to the teachers.”

Derrick Richardson, a parent of district students and a human relations commissioner in Union City, said he was “extremely disappointed” by district management.

“The level of arrogance and disrespect coming from this board is staggering,” he said. “If this is what you’re going to give us, then we will exercise our options and get our kids educated outside of this district, because this is ridiculous.”

The chaotic meeting took on a format more akin to a town hall near the end, as Smith began having a wide ranging exchange with people in the crowd about his background as a teacher, his salary, and the neutral fact-finding report issued May 6 about the wage dispute.

Board member Sarabjit Kaur Cheema was also in the room, while board member Jeff Wang spoke with parents in the lobby; board president Sharan Kaur had left. Board member Lance Nishihira had teleconferenced into the meeting from Guatemala, and board member Linda Canlas was absent.

Smith said it’s a “good narrative” to paint him as a person without “feelings,” “a heart,” or someone who doesn’t care for teachers, but that’s all false.

“Do you think for one minute, that any of us is enjoying this? Do you think for one minute if we could give it, we wouldn’t?,” he said.

He also said it was a “mistake” for district management to offer zero percent to teachers initially, and that negotiations will continue.

“Teachers are the highest calling on earth. They have been underpaid for ages. But you can’t give what you don’t have,” he said. “We are going to get back and try and find a solution that works for everybody. One that we can afford and one that will take care of our employees.”