The members of UE Local 741, who are paraprofessionals, cooks, custodians, bus drivers, mechanics, and maintenance workers in the Highland Local School District, are used to difficult times. Despite being essential to maintaining safe and learning conditions and often being responsible for students’ lives, such “classified staff” in public schools are often overlooked and underrespected. The situation is made worse in Ohio, with 31 years of a Republican supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly failing to rectify Ohio’s inadequate and unlawful school-funding situation. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that Ohio’s heavy reliance on local property taxes created unfair gaps between rich and poor districts. Bipartisan fair school funding plans [1] have repeatedly been proposed since, only to be voted down by right-wing extremists who favor corporate charter schools and/or religious zealots controlling education. Ohio spent more than a billion dollars on private school vouchers last year [2], funneling money away from public schools. An ongoing conservative drive to eliminate all property taxes in Ohio also leaves every school district [3] under further threat. The Highland Local Schools District has every reason to be worried about their financial future, but when they attempted to balance their budget on the backs of their lowest-paid workers, Local 741 fought back.

Local 741 has grown used to being forced into single-year agreements due to unstable state and federal education funding, and understood all too well the precarious situation the district was in. For months ahead of negotiations, the majority of their overtime was eliminated and they heard student and parent complaints about cuts to programming. They prepared for negotiations with modest proposals that they felt would hold them over for another year. The district’s initial offer was a zero-percent increase and elimination of the PPO healthcare plan — the “good” plan older members depend upon. While the district eventually moved to a two percent wage increase, they were firm on extreme cuts to the employer contribution to the PPO and eliminating the PPO option for new hires (creating a tier in the contract) because the district’s teachers’ union had agreed to this. Teachers often make two to three times what classified staff make at Highland. The bargaining committee insisted on taking this offer to the membership. One member remarked, “I am the sole income earner in my family and my husband has a terminal illness — this offer takes most of my paycheck.” Members voted the offer down and came to a school board meeting to support Local 741 President Taylor Stepp, who gave an impassioned speech on the importance of classified staff and the disrespect this offer showed.

After more contentious bargaining sessions, the employer agreed to a two percent base wage increase, improved layoff notice, and a clarification of their complicated overtime calculation method that will make future employer mistakes easier to grieve. They kept the PPO plan available to all members, with a slightly higher employer contribution. This is the first contract in memory where Local 741's actions have won a better settlement than the district's teachers' union, no doubt due to the tenacity of the bargaining committee backed by the actions of the membership.

While they did the best they could under difficult circumstances, the process was not encouraging. Classified staff know their jobs will be under attack as long as public education continues to be attacked. President Taylor Stepp said, “Public schools are beginning to feel the restraints of the lackluster funding being received. These funding cuts are really putting the squeeze on local schools and their employees. It would be no surprise to me if public schooling was no longer an option in the not so distant future. This harsh reality may be coming quicker than we realize.”

The Local 741 bargaining committee consisted of President Taylor Stepp, Vice President Toni Stepp, Recording Secretary Em Hess, and Chief Steward Christie Carson. They were assisted by Field Organizer Heather Hillenbrand.