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QuickTake:
Administrators and union leaders are struggling to come to agreements on contract issues including pay, benefits and conditions. Two districts will enter mediation with their teacher unions in November.
It’s a year of expiring contracts for many educators and school support staff in the Eugene-Springfield area, and bargaining is ongoing.
Springfield and Bethel school districts are entering private mediation in November to try to tie up teachers union contracts. Eugene School District 4J is bargaining with its classified staff union. And Lane Community College is in negotiations with its faculty union.
Unions and employers can opt to use a neutral mediator as a tool in bargaining when two parties are in disagreements after 150 days. Mediation sessions are done in private rather than in public, and after 15 days of mediation, either side can declare an impasse. Then comes final offers and a 30-day cooling off period. If there is still no agreement after the 30 days, employees can declare a strike.
Administrators at local districts and Lane Community College are facing tight budgets due to the end of COVID-era grants, declining K-12 enrollment and costs that outpace state funds. Unions, however, are continuing their fight for better compensation and working conditions.
Springfield Public Schools
Springfield Public Schools and its teachers union, Springfield Education Association, will enter mediation Nov. 6.
The two parties met for their last open bargaining session Sept. 3. Progress over the eight sessions since March was slow — the district and union signed off on 12 articles during open bargaining and 13 remain on the table. District administrators opted for mediation because of “urgency to reach a settlement and provide clarity for staff, students, and families” according to an information page on the district’s website about mediation.
“The longer negotiations take, the greater the likelihood that reductions will be required once a contract is finalized,” the webpage states. “Those cuts could impact licensed positions, which directly affects classrooms.”
Maria Sayre-Heiss, bargaining chair for the teachers union, said members were upset that the district decided to go into mediation, because negotiations had not yet stalled between the parties, a typical reason for groups to go into mediation.
The district’s last cost-of-living adjustment proposal was an increase of 4% a year for the first two years of the three-year contract. This is within the $2 million budget that Brett Yancey, the district’s chief operations officer, said the district has for additions to the contract. The union’s latest proposal was a 6.5% increase per year for three years.
Sayre-Heiss said members have expressed opposition to the district’s desire to lengthen their contractual work day by 30 minutes, as well as the district’s requirement for elementary teachers to spend their school hours prep time twice a week in meetings as opposed to having the meetings after school. Sayre-Heiss said these are their deal breakers.
“None of our teachers want to have to sacrifice pay to go on strike,” Sayre-Heiss said. “But if there’s things on the table, still, that we feel like make it so that we can’t be the best teachers for our students to help them have good student outcomes, then we have to make that tough choice.”
Bethel School District
Bethel School District and its teachers union, Eugene Education Association, will enter mediation Nov. 12, according to an informational webpage on the district’s website. The two parties have signed temporary agreements on 18 articles out of 42 and four memorandums of agreements over the course of 10 sessions that began in March.
The district and union jointly requested mediation at their September meeting, according to the district’s webpage.
Sabrina Gordon, former Eugene Education Association president, said in an email to Lookout that the biggest sticking points for the union are pay, access to bereavement leave, and classroom support for students with disabilities and special needs.
“We are optimistic that, with the assistance of a mediator, a responsible agreement can be reached,” the district webpage states. “We remain committed to working toward an agreement that supports students, staff, and the District.”
Eugene School District 4J
Eugene School District 4J and its classified staff union, Oregon School Employees Association, are still in active bargaining, where sessions are recorded and open to the public.
Classified staff include bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, facilities workers, educational assistants, tech workers and cafeteria workers, among others.
The two parties have met 10 times since April and have five more meetings scheduled through December. Major items still on the table are pay, insurance contributions and educational assistant duties, according to Lisa Jenkins-Easton, chapter president of OSEA Eugene Chapter 1.
The district’s most recent proposal on a cost-of-living adjustment was a 3.25% increase in pay per year for a three-year contract. The union’s most recent proposal is an 8.5% increase per year for a two-year contract.
Jenkins-Easton said she’s happy the district recently agreed to make a separate article about safety so that staff can more easily locate information they need but wants the district to agree to hiring licensed practical nurses to help with student medical needs currently falling on educational assistants. The union also wants members to have more choice in whether they perform these tasks, which include helping students use the bathroom, Jenkins-Easton said.
Kelly McIver, 4J director of communications and intergovernmental relations, emphasized the positives in a statement about OSEA bargaining.
“The district and OSEA recently added seven additional bargaining dates for October through December, and are making meaningful progress including multiple tentative agreements on contract language,” McIver wrote. “We are continuing negotiations toward a fair and practical contract.”
Lane Community College
Lane Community College and its faculty union, Lane Community College Education Association, have scheduled bargaining sessions through Dec. 19.
Faculty have been vocal, at board meetings and in public demonstrations, about their opposition to the college’s proposals, including on pay, workload and working conditions, and their own proposals, which include pay parity for part-time and full-time faculty and limiting class sizes.
LCC’s proposal for cost-of-living adjustment is a 1.3% increase in pay each year for three years. The union’s proposal is a 3.75% increase a year.
“It is possible and seems likely that we will go into mediation,” Adrienne Mitchell, the union’s president, wrote in an email to Lookout.
The college is concerned that the union and public don’t fully understand the scope of fiscal challenges facing the college, said Jenna McCulley, LCC interim senior adviser for strategic communications. This includes the need to build back reserves while the college’s spending continues to outpace revenue and a potential $2.5 million reduction in state funds for LCC this year.
“We’re facing very challenging financial and fiscal times,” McCulley said. “The concern about some of the association’s proposals is that they’re misaligned with the fiscal realities the college is facing right now.”