In April 2009 35 tutors and job coaches voted to join Sub-local 60 of UE Local 222, which already represented all the educational assistants, custodians, and secretaries in the Farmington school system. The union recently concluded negotiations to integrate those workers into the union contract, greatly improving their workplace rights and their benefits.
Previously, the Board of Education (BOE) had provided tutors what it called a “non-affiliate contract” – a unilateral, non-negotiated set of guidelines that did not provide a pension, longevity raises, seniority protection or a grievance procedure. It took tutors 16 years to get to the top pay rate, while the UE contract covering the other school employees provided for five steps over just three years to reach top rate. While union members had voted to take a one-year wage freeze in exchange for a guarantee of no layoffs, the BOE had unilaterally imposed the wage freeze on tutors, but with no job guarantees.
Negotiations to roll the tutors and job coaches into the contract began in May 2009, but got off to a very rocky start. The BOE opened bargaining by announcing that a study it had commissioned earlier had concluded that tutors and educational assistants did the same work, and therefore all tutor positions should be eliminated and their seniority start not on their hire dates, but on the 2009 date when the union was certified as their representative.
The union’s first win at the bargaining table was getting the BOE to agree that the tutors would be covered by the “no layoff” guarantee – although the board at that time did not retreat from its position that the tutor classification should be eliminated. The union developed a response to the school board’s study, showing the varied and demanding requirements of tutors’ work. Over the course of the 2009- 2010 school year the tutors met several times, and the union held monthly meetings for all of the membership, to discuss the details of rolling the tutors into the contract in a way that protected everyone’s rights. A major sticking point was the unevenness that resulted from meshing the two wage schedules, one of which had been negotiated and the other imposed by management.
Finally in June, the union achieved a settlement. Changes in the contract will provide for four classifications: instructional paraprofessional, special education paraprofessional, special subject tutors and job coaches. (Job couches provide career counseling to high school students.) Tutors were rolled into the wage rates on the basis of each tutor’s total length of service with the Farmington school system. The top rate for paraprofessionals is set at $20.47 this year and top rate for special subject tutors and job coaches is $22.14. These rates will increase by 3.4 percent next year. Each tutor’s total seniority will now be counted for purposes of layoffs and job bids. Tutors will now also be covered for the first time by the defined benefit pension plan and longevity pay, with accrual of these benefits starting on the date of the union certification in May 2009.
“The paraprofessionals, tutors and job coaches of the Farmington Public Schools have joined Local 60 and we are pleased to welcome them, said Sublocal President Pauline Wilson. “The negotiation process was a very difficult one, but I’m proud of the strength and dedication of the bargaining committee in working towards the completion of the negotiations.”
The bargaining committee consisted of President Pauline Wilson, Ida Franklin, Cathie Bonk, Mary Kay Marino and Aileen Saporito. They were assisted by UE International Representative Carol Lambiase.