The Greater Lowell Teachers Organization is made up of teachers, nurses and counselors. The GLTO has been working without a contract since June of 2010. We have tried to bargain in good faith with the School Committee and the Superintendent, but it has been almost impossible. Recently the School Committee and the School Superintendent published information on the School website regarding the progress of collective bargaining. We wish to clear up some misrepresentations and inaccuracies.

Background

Our teachers worked all last year without a contract. During such time we attempted to negotiate with the School Committee to secure a new agreement however those attempts were stymied by the School Committee’s refusal to come to the table. Multiple negotiation sessions were scheduled, only to be cancelled at the last minute by the Committee and not rescheduled for months. Finally, a state mediator had to be called in to facilitate joint meetings to move matters forward.

The issues at the table involve wages, health insurance cost containment and workplace rules.

On the matter of wages, teachers worked last year with a 0% salary increase. During this period the School Committee offered to provide increases for veteran teachers only if those increases were paid for by reducing the wages of less experienced teachers the following year. In other words, any raise for more senior teachers must be paid back with pay cuts for less senior employees. Moreover, the Committee sought to curtail longevity incentives for career service. This was obviously unacceptable and given the School Committee’s lack of presence at the bargaining table, progress was impossible.

On the matter of health insurance costs, our teachers realize that costs of healthcare must be balanced with the need to be properly protected against the devastation of illness or injury. To this end we voluntarily restructured our health plan offerings to eliminate expensive “fee for service” plans and encourage use of more restrictive “managed care” plans. This saved the school district tens of thousands of dollars. We did this outside of the bargaining process and without expectation to receive anything in return. Moreover, we recognize that further discussion on the matter is proper and have been open to the school district interest in negotiating this issue.

Thus, last March, we requested information from the district relative to current health plans so that we could have a reasonable discussion on the issue. The duty to provide that information is the legal responsibility of a public agency. We have yet to receive it despite repeated reminders.

Similarly, we requested information in July regarding the district’s financial audits completed on the school for the past two years to take a look at the spending and assess the financial health of the school system. This information is necessary for intelligent conversation on matters relating to the parties’ proposals. This request has also been ignored. The school district’s lack of response demonstrates its absence of good faith.

Greater Lowell Teachers contribute to their health insurance plan in a manner consistent with other teacher groups from surrounding areas and from schools similar to ours. For example we make the same contribution to our health insurance as teachers at Nashoba Technical High School and Shawsheen Technical High School. Despite this we have expressed willingness to our School Committee to increase the cost of our contribution so long as it is part of a fair comprehensive settlement. This attempt has been rebuffed.

Finally, on the matter of working conditions, the school district seeks to add additional work time to the teacher’s daily schedule while the teachers propose to provide a system wherein a consistent and fair distribution of leave time for teachers would be outlined in the contract. Our proposal does not seek to increase the amount of time teachers would be away from work; rather, it is to insure consistency and transparency in a school district whose reputation has been marred in press and public by accusations of favoritism.

On November 15th, we agreed in principle to the program proposed by the School Committee for teachers to work extra hours but requested of them that the specifics of its proposal be explained to us. The Committee did not provide those specifics, so we are waiting again for more information. The Committee rejected our proposal to address the language on personal leave days.

In response to this absence of good faith our teachers have been attending school committee meetings to voice their displeasure with the lack of progress at the bargaining table. Our attendance has been orderly and professional. The response from certain School Committee members however has been anything but. In fact, at one such meeting the teachers were insulted by the School Committee’s own bargaining chair who taunted them with claims that the school district was in fine financial shape it was just unwilling to share that good fortune with its employees. “We’ve got plenty of money” he bellowed to the group. This disrespect and dismissiveness is consistent with the school district’s overall behavior in the bargaining process.

We have been willing to compromise as the bargaining process demands but this willingness has gotten us nowhere. The teachers of Greater Lowell wish to put this unpleasantness behind us, settle a reasonable contract and concentrate on the matter of educating the district’s children. This goal is undermined by the lack of respect and responsiveness of this School Committee. We fear that continued disruption will have a harmful impact on quality of instruction provided by our teachers.

Congratulations to Greater Lowell Teachers and Students for becoming a level one school for MCAS scores!

Someone has to be Freddy’s gopher…..since Freddy didn’t win he needs a mouthpiece , looks like he found someone to take the job

City Council Agenda for Nov 22nd

18. C. Elliott – Req. City Council vote to request the City Manager have a third party confirm the safety of uninspected LHA units at North Common Village.

11/16/2011
PRESS RELEASE

TO: MEMBER COMMUNITIES OF THE GREATER LOWELL REGIONAL VOCATIONAL TECHNICAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Some of you may have heard that contract negotiations between the Greater Lowell School Committee and the Greater Lowell Teachers’ Association have not been progressing towards agreement. Some of you may have seen or become aware of the teachers’ concerted activity to support their collective bargaining representatives at the negotiating table. Despite the difficult negotiations our teachers have continued to work hard on behalf of your children and our students. Teachers are our most important resource. In an era of economic collapse the likes of which we have not seen since the 1930’s, however, valuing teacher contributions does not justify ignoring economic reality.

We have had a number of formal negotiating sessions, and some informal meetings, and are now in mediation. With the assistance of a state mediator we do hope that these lengthy negotiations will come to a fair conclusion. Like many school districts we carefully considered the economic environment and the impact of cost of living increases to our staff in the summer of 2010 when we began negotiations. Most Greater Lowell teachers on the salary schedule automatically earn more each year by moving from one “step” to another on the salary schedule.

This is true even before a cost of living adjustment is negotiated. Teachers on top of the salary schedule, however, do not receive an automatic step increase. So, to compensate senior staff who have been working in the District for many years but who do not receive an automatic step increase the Committee presented to the Teachers’ Organization a proposal to reallocate existing salary dollars in a way which compensates all teachers, including the most senior staff. While this action would have resulted in a smaller automatic step increase paid to less senior staff, the Committee believed it was an equitable proposal for our more experienced senior staff. The Teachers’ Organization disagreed and rejected our proposal to reallocate salary dollars.

Instead, the GLTO proposed that all automatic step increases be paid as usual and that additional new dollars be added to the salary of more senior staff in the form of new steps on the salary schedule. In reviewing these early proposals we determined that a 1% across the board wage increase would cost the District approximately $145,000 (teachers only). The cost of paying the automatic step increases is approximately $195,000 (already paid out 2011-2012). The District also now pays about $90,000.00 annually towards longevity for senior staff and has an expense of about $35,000.00 per year for course reimbursements to teachers.

The Committee currently pays 85% for HMO plans. If we were to reduce the District’s contributions to employee health insurance by 10% as many, many school districts have done across the Commonwealth in these past several years, we could save approximately $310,000 annually. In most of our neighboring school districts teachers’ pay more towards health insurance than do the teachers at Greater Lowell.
In addition to requesting changes to the contribution rate for health insurance premiums and asking our teachers to work an extra 44 minutes three days a week, we originally offered a 6%
increase to the base over the life of a new contract. Teachers would offer to help students with tutoring or other one-to-one work, meet with teacher curriculum teams, and meet with or communicate with parents generally or specifically relative to special education issues. Staff could also use this time to attend required departmental meetings or other meetings relating to federal programs such as, for example, RTTT, teacher evaluation and MCAS or other data analysis, lesson planning, enrichment programs for students or other teacher directed activities related to the educational program.

In exchange for the additional time we proposed to end twice monthly meetings to help reduce the time constraint to staff. The Union rejected our requests for mandatory additional time, arguing that it came without compensation. We then proposed a program where we would pay up to $6,000 annually for teachers who volunteered to take on additional duties similar to those listed above. The Committee believes students and staff will benefit from this program but the Committee also believes that if a staff member does not want to work additional time there is no justification in this economic environment for excessive across the board increases.

To help reduce long-term financial pressures we proposed to eliminate longevity for new hires, and cap sick leave buy back at 200 days for present employees, eliminating the buy back for new employees. We also proposed to increase course reimbursement per teacher to $750.00 annually and cap the available pool for course reimbursement at present fiscal year 2011 levels.

As to the Union’s demands, we have indicated a willingness to loosen up some language restricting use of personal days and address the course reimbursement issue.

We believe that the economic crisis we have all endured for the past several years will not get better soon. We also believe that our good, hardworking teachers need to be recognized for their service to our children and, therefore, had originally proposed a 6% increase to the base. This proposal would help us all get past difficult economic times, insure a reasonable increase to the base pay, and provide an opportunity to provide more time for teachers to plan, meet with students, and parents or engage in professional activities on a weekly basis.

We are releasing this statement to outline our thoughts on the current circumstances, particularly as the Union’s activities have become more public, resulting in questions from students, parents and community members.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Steven O’Neill
Chairperson
Greater Lowell Negotiations Sub-Committee

Lowell can divide politically and competitors fight to be the first with the news but when times are tough and the cause is there, Lowell has a history of coming together and helping out those in need.

This Holiday season is no exception, WCAP, LTC and the SUN are teaming up to help out those families in need during this years Salvation Army Radiothon on Saturday Dec. 10th.

Not only will WCAP be broadcasting from their downtown studio but they will also be in the Lobby of the Sun building and on LTC channel 8 broadcasting and showcasing the many auction items available to bid on.

This BLOG (and hopefully many others) will get involved and encourage all to support the cause by having a link to the LTC feed and asking people to donate and bid.

The Radiothon is also looking for people who want to get more involved and if you would like to help, please contact the Salvation Army or WCAP and someone will get back to you.

You can also help out by attending the Birthday Bash and Roast for Fred Simon on Friday December 2nd at Lenzi’s in Dracut 6:00 – 10:00 pm Tickets are $50.00 and check can be made out to Team Micky Ward charities who are sponsoring the event with all proceeds going to the Salvation Army. Tickets can be purchased at Shaw Farms, The Owl Diner , Dracut Town Hall and at the Salvation Army.