Above:
Jillian Emerson, 17, and Jessica Bowerman, 17, will be seniors at Black Hills
High School in September. They rallied in support of their teachers and others represented
by the Tumwater Education Association outside Tumwater
School District offices on Saturday afternoon.
“I really believe that with the
numbers we have right now, over 90 percent of our members will vote to strike,”
says Tim Voie, Tumwater Education Association union president.
By
Janine Gates
Little
Hollywood
https:/janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com
“The last thing we want to do is strike,” said Tim Voie, Tumwater Education Association president at a rally held outside Tumwater School District offices on Saturday afternoon.
Inside, union representatives were working on a contract while Voie and union members were outside calling for lower class sizes and professional pay and respect.
Many families are on vacation squeezing out the last bits out of summer or shopping for back-to-school clothes and supplies while educator union members around the state are bargaining for fair wages.
Inside, union representatives were working on a contract while Voie and union members were outside calling for lower class sizes and professional pay and respect.
Many families are on vacation squeezing out the last bits out of summer or shopping for back-to-school clothes and supplies while educator union members around the state are bargaining for fair wages.
In
its January, 2012 McCleary decision, the Washington State Supreme Court ordered
the state to fully fund K-12 public schools as required by Article IX of the
Washington Constitution.
This
past June, the court ruled that the state is in compliance with
the McCleary decision. The Legislature increased state funding for public
schools by billions, including $2 billion to increase educator salaries in the
2018-19 school year.
Although
the money is there, pay raises at the local level in each school district need
to be negotiated.
An
educator for 26 years, Voie is a teacher at Secondary Options, Tumwater’s
alternative high school. This is his fifth year as president of the Tumwater
Education Association.
“At
that time, they offered us a 3.1 percent pay raise. Then we spent the summer
watching districts around the state get significant pay increases. We believe
that the teachers of Tumwater should get a fair portion that the state allotted
in the McCleary decision for teacher’s salaries.”
The
3.1 percent figure, Voie says, is an imaginary number.
“So many districts have flown past that percentage that the district
finally agreed yesterday that the 3.1 percent number is a non-factor. Now we’re
trying to bargain a contract to get us to an equal footing similar to our
like-sized districts from around the state. What we’re finding is that in order
to attract and retain great teachers, we’re going to have to offer a salary
that’s going to do so,” said Voie.
“Right
now, the offer the district has put on the table will not be ratified by our
membership when we present the numbers to them. We’ve got a strike
authorization vote for Monday. I really believe that with the numbers we have
right now, over 90 percent of our members will vote to strike. That doesn’t
mean we’re on strike then. We’ve still got until August 31 to work on it. That’s
when our current contract expires, so we so could vote to authorize a strike and
we could keep working on negotiations.
There
are about 6,000 students in Tumwater and about 400 certificated staff. Members
of the union include not just teachers, but psychologists, counselors, speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, and nurses.
Tumwater
Education Association negotiators include five certificated members and one
representative of the Washington Education Association.
Voie
was asked if Tumwater union members have ever before reached this point of contention.
“Not
to this point. We went to mediation a couple of years ago and had to use a
mediator to settle but we’ve never reached a point where a strike was imminent. We’re there now. Again, that’s the last thing we want to do. That’s not
good for anybody, but neither does settling for a salary that we think doesn’t
value and honor the teachers.
Above: Tumwater Education Association members rally on Saturday.
Jillian
Emerson, 17, and Jessica Bowerman, 17, both students at Black Hills High
School, spent their Saturday supporting their teachers and Tumwater school
district staff.
Amid
noisy, supportive horn honking by cars driving past the rally, Bowerman said
she moved to Tumwater from Minneapolis when she was in the eighth grade. She
says she wants to be an engineer.
“I
really like math and took calculus last year,” she said.
Emerson,
who has attended Tumwater schools since kindergarten, says she wants to go into
the medical field, perhaps as a physical therapist.
“I
love all my teachers. They deserve fair pay. We’ve lost some good teachers to
other districts because of the pay. I don’t want them to go on strike. My dad is a bus driver and I want my dad to
work. I definitely support what the teachers are asking for,” said Emerson.
Olympia Education Association Bargaining Session on Monday
Adam
Brickell, president of the Olympia Education Association, was at the rally in
support of the demonstration. Brickell represents about 700 union members.
Brickell,
a speech and language pathologist, works with special education students with
speech delays. He’s been an educator for 22 years and has held his position as
union president for almost six years.
Brickell
says Olympia is still having good, constructive talks at the bargaining table.
His union is not considering a strike and his members are out supporting others.
The Olympia Education Association has an all-day bargaining session scheduled for Monday. He hopes they can get a temporary agreement so they can ratify it at their general membership meeting on August 29.
The Olympia Education Association has an all-day bargaining session scheduled for Monday. He hopes they can get a temporary agreement so they can ratify it at their general membership meeting on August 29.
“Everyone is bargaining right now and trying to wrap
things up before school starts, so you’re going to see a lot happening in this
next week,” said Bricklin.
Above:
Jennifer Hyer-Long, a physical education teacher at Tumwater Middle School, with her son, Chase, who is almost 13 years old, on Saturday afternoon. Holding her homemade sign, Hyer-Long said she has lived in Tumwater since the fourth grade.
