Neshaminy teachers' strike closes schools
Job action will extend school year for 7,000 students. It's the union's second strike this year in the bitter four-year contract impasse.
Neshaminy teachers' strike closes schools
Updated at 11:37 a.m.
Teachers in the Neshaminy School District went on strike this morning for the second time this year, closing classes for 7,000 students.
Members of the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers started picketing outside the Lower Bucks County district’s 13 schools starting at 7 a.m., on the day high school seniors were scheduled to start final exams. The strike will extend the school year to as late as June 29, though the district plans to stick to its June 13 graduation.
The teachers are completing their fourth year without a raise, working under the terms of the contract that expired in July 2008. After 39 negotiating sessions and a recent non-binding arbitration. both sides are still far apart on back pay, raises, health care contributions and retirement incentives.
”We’re not here by choice, but because the school board has left us no choice,” union vice president Jeff Dunkley said outside Neshaminy High School. “They have presented nothing but exceedingly more punitive proposals, while we’ve offered six proposals that have been exceedingly more modest.”
The strike comes one month after the school board unanimously rejected an independent arbitrator’s recommendations that President Ritchie Webb said would cost the district $20 million.
The non-binding arbitration was required by state law because of the union’s eight-day strike in January.
“Without the January strike, we wouldn’t have reached non-binding arbitration,” Dunkley said, “and without non-binding arbitration, we wouldn’t have reached the right to a second strike.”
The district is waiting for the state Board of Education to set a deadline for the teachers to return to work to complete the required 180-day school year, school board member Mike Morris said. Classes must be completed by June 30, without extending school days or scheduling weekend sessions.
NFT President Louise Boyd said the union would welcome an order from Bucks County Court for daily negotiations to resolve the impasse, but “there’s no guarantee a judge would become involved.”
Morris said the union “is trying to steer this to binding arbitration, just like it did for the non-binding arbitration, superseding the public’s rights.”
Both sides described last week's negotiating session as unproductive, and the next session, scheduled for June 12, will be canceled if the union is on strike, board President Ritchie Webb has said.
Union leaders have said the board refuses to meet the teachers half way in the bitter impasse, while the district has said it cannot afford the midpoint or many terms of the expired contract. The district is facing a $5.5 million shortfall for next year and is planning to cut programs and union positions to help balance the budget.
The union is seeking 80 percent of back pay, including education and service credits, and annual wage increases of 1 percent to 3.25 percent from last year through the 2013-14 school year. The school board maintains it cannot afford any back pay, except for education credits, and has offered 1 percent raises for this year and each of the next two years.
Under the district’s proposal, base salaries would range from $42,552 to $96,883 this year.
The teachers, who have never contributed to their health care coverage, have offered to pay 8 percent of the annual premiums, compared to the district’s proposed 15 percent.
And they have offered to reduce the $27,500 retirement benefit after 10 years of consecutive service, plus free insurance coverage for them and their dependents, while the district is seeking to drop the benefit.
At the Langhorne Coffee House, Larry Good III, Class of 2000, said he now has friends who are teachers n the district.
“I think the contract should be more in line with what people in private industry get,” said Good, who works in his family’s heating and air conditioning business. “”It’s not fair to pay 2, 3, 4 percent raises annually and not pay for health care.”
His father added, “Everyone would like to se it just be over. My sympathies are with the school board – we can’t afford it, and they [the teachers] want it.
“I hope they come up with a good resolution,” Larry Good Jr. said, “but I don’t think there will be one.”
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"annual wage increases of 1 percent to 3.25 percent from last year through the 2013-14 school year"
"And they have offered to reduce the $27,500 retirement benefit after 10 years of consecutive service, plus free insurance coverage for them and their dependents, while the district is seeking to drop the benefit."
Lots of people haven't gotten raises in years yet they're supposed to pay for these people to have raises every year? free insurance coverage????? No way. Get to work you greedy SOBs.
— theromneycult- fire these union leeches and hire replacements. i'm sure the queue would be out the door for high five-figure jobs working 9 mos of the year, with gold-plated benefits and a pension vesting in three years allowing you to retire at 55. these unionized baboons are a disgrace
— barry m goldwater - These teachers should be ashamed of themselves. Greedy pieces of ----. They make more than many college professors, lawyers, etc. They are obviously in it for the money. They chose the wrong profession.— Guacamole
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- Oh right, maybe not the fact that they turned down other positions or other disctricts for what their contract and pay scale said it would be. Not because they too, had to make alternate arrangements for thier own children because their pay has not been what is should be in four years? Not because they have thousands and thousands of dollars in school loans to pay off- right for the measely money they make compared to other professions that pay PhD graduates or those with their Masters Degree- get a clue, please read the material before you comment, the judge sent and arbitrator who reviews the money, etc... and it's all there. Teaching is a full time around the clock job. Getting home at 4-5 doing lesson plans, being dogged by everyone in the world, putting up with parents and kids and not being able to say a word about it. MUST BE THE MONEY — knbk1010
- Amazing! People like cleanup philly have no comment when the good ole' suburban teachers strike TWICE in one school year, but when Philly teachers protest & complain we get ridiculed! Mind you, Philly is the lowest paying district in the State largely because its against the law for Philly teachers to strike.... so you do the math, suburban pay greatest and they get to strike as evidenced by the second such job action this year; Philly pay is lowest and we have had our right to strike stripped by the state!— teach34181
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- They aren't greedy. Go back and read all the articles on this. 4 years without a contract. The teachers went to the non-binding arbitration at the board's request. They did the sessions and the FT voted to accept the outcome while the board rejected it 8-1, I think. Nothing like rejecting something you asked the other side to go to.— sjnative94
- sj- sounds like you should go back and read the past articles! they are the highest paid teachers in the state, yet our test scores have plummeted during the life of the last contract. it BENEFITS the union to be working without a contract... the longer the do, the longer they continue to get FREE healthcare. these thugs wanted the arbitrator to step in, not the board... in the hopes the arbitator would slant towards the union side... and she did.
now, they're striking again... and 15 of the youngest/brightest teachers received pink slips last friday... i wonder if those teachers are walking the picket line in solidarity today...— kodiak - Aren't we all a little greedy? If we were not wouldn't we all be happy with the status quo?— Lizzy56
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- I've worked all my life, made decent money, and I've never had to sign a contract in my life. Why? I've never needed a union that's why. Unions were good at one point in time, but that time has long been over. Stick to your guns school board, graduate on the 13th, finish classes for the others, and let these yo-yos stand around during the summer....— Anthony Palmer
