WYANDOTTE ? Wage freezes and higher health insurance deductibles are common threads in labor contracts with teachers, administrative assistants and maintenance workers employed by the school district.
The Board of Education unanimously approved three-year contracts Tuesday with the Wyandotte Education Association, the Wyandotte Education Administrative Assistants Association and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1055 that had previously been ratified by their members.
The highest profile of those contracts is that between the school district and the 292 members of the teachers? union.
The secretaries? union represents 26 members and there are 51 maintenance workers.
A contract still must be negotiated with AFSCME Local 1430, which represents 141 members of the Special Education Center Programs Paraprofessionals. Other unsettled contracts are with the 26-member United Auto Workers Local 174 food service workers and the 16-member Wyandotte Administrative Association.
School Supt. Carla Harting and Business Manager Kenneth Laub represented the school district in negotiating sessions with teachers. The WEA team was represented by President Glen Meisel, Vice President John Mitroka and Jordan Harris, a Michigan Education Association Uniserv director assigned to the WEA.
According to Harting, wages and benefits were the issues discussed. She said all unions in Wyandotte have step advancement by the number of years they have worked, common in the education field.
?The teachers accepted a freeze in step advancement for the 2011-12 school year,? Harting said. ?We also added a new step at the bottom of the salary schedule.?
She said the teachers? union took a freeze on steps for the school year just ending, even though there was a provision in its 2011-12 agreement that members could receive steps if an 8 percent fund balance existed when the school district?s audit is completed in October. However, this agreement voids that provision.
?We agreed they would accept a step freeze for 2011-12 and receive steps instead for 2012-13,? Harting said. Continued...
Teachers, as well as the employees represented by the secretaries? and maintenance workers? unions, took a hard cap on benefits. The state has determined the maximum amount a district can pay for each employee?s health care. For one person, the amount is $5,500; for two people, $11,000; and for a family, $15,000.
This move does not necessarily translate into a substantial increase in the amount school employees will pay for health care. Harting said employees were paying between 10 percent and 20 percent of the cost of their health care premiums prior to this agreement. Under the new plan, employees will have no cost to the benefit plan if they accept a high deductible, between $1,000 and $2,000.
?If they take the high-deductible plan, there will be no deduction from their pay,? she said. ?They have the option of selecting a plan with a lower deductible ($150 or $300). They must pay the difference in cost between the high-deductible plan and the lower-deductible plan.?
All three contracts include annual wage and benefit reopeners.
Meisel could not be reached for comment.
The superintendent said she is pleased to begin the school year with settled contracts.
?All unions understood the difficult financial times we currently are facing and came to the table with that knowledge,? she said. ?I appreciate all the hard work of all the negotiations team that made my first experience as the negotiator for the district successful in settling contracts before the start of the year.?
Those sentiments were echoed by Robert Kirby, Board of Education president, who said the entire board was pleased with Harting and her staff for working so hard to get the contracts settled. He said the board believes the remaining three union contracts will be settled soon.
?It is always nice to start the school year off right,? Kirby said. ?We preach that for your kids, and handling these contractual issues is a great way for everyone to start the school year on a good note. I would also like to thank all the employees for working with our administration and showing their knowledge of how we are funded and their willingness to come to an agreement. We have always had a great relationship with our staff and think very highly of them.?
Contact Jim Kasuba at 1-734-246-0881 or jimk@heritage.com. Follow him on Facebook and @JKasuba on Twitter.
Source: http://www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2012/08/26/news/doc5037d4cbc142a819576680.txt
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