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.”
- Can't see it from my classroom while I'm writing my end of the year final. So far I have not talked about the Union at all. It is the attack on the teachers themselves that I have a problem with. Saying they should be fired and replaced with new teachers is completely illogical. There is a significant difference between a new teacher and a veteran teacher. There seems to be a generalization in the anti-teacher comments that the teachers do not deserve the pay they are getting. What information do you have that these are the "dead wood" teachers?
— Med201 - chris- the upper end of the salaries at neshaminy is 125K+... and many of these folks are the dead wood that we're stuck with because of tenure.— kodiak
- FREE Health Insurance? Guareteed raises? Back Pay? WOW!— frankie630
- Let's see ...
From the Census Bureau
PA Median household income 2006-2010 - $50,398
From The Morning Call:
Average classroom teacher salaries in Pennsylvania by county, 2006-07
County #of teachers Avg salary Avg experience (years)
1. Bucks 5,841 $73,746 14.9
2. Montgomery 7,560 $66,042 13.2
3. Sullivan 58 $61,492 19.7
4. Delaware 4,922 $60,146 13.5
5. Chester 4,988 $57,986 12.5
So the average teacher in Bucks County makes almost 50% more than the median salary of all of Pennsylvanians. And gets contribution free medial coverage and pension. Does anyone wonder why there is such an outcry about public employee unions, especially teachers? Talk about a golden goose. The real world beckons teachers; be prepared to join it.— FrankMar - Sorry, the table didn't line up like I thought it would. I'll try again.
_______County____#of teachers__Avg salary__Avg experience (years)
1......Bucks.......5,841.........$73,746........14.9
2......Montgomery..7,56......... $66,042........13.2
3......Sullivan......58......... $61,492........19.7
4......Delaware....4,922.........$60,146........13.5
5......Chester.....4,988.........$57,986........12.5
Hope this is more readable.— FrankMar - I give up! — FrankMar
- Now find the median household income for professionals with a masters degree or higher plus 50-70 hours a year of continuing education....the US average is $78,500. The average teacher has a masters degree. Maybe they feel that they should be paid similar to those whose educational experience is similar to theirs. I kind of don't blame them, especially with how important their job is.
— LancasterLouie - Any private sector bargaining unit that has been w/o a contract for 4 years would vote out the international or decert. This is the essence of the issue- 4 years w/o a contract says it all - the 2008 deal was better than what was standard practice up until very recently. What does that tell you!! I have no problem with teachers - my Mother was a teacher. It is the lack of accountability combined w/a public sector bureaucratic / entitlement approach to employment that has brought the institution to it's knees. It's time to start over for the sake of our children and grandchildren.— Northcountry
- Many of these teachers have their masters degree or their Phd. They work hard, homework is for the teachers as well, they are never wihtout work; even int the summer. Just as those who condem, took their job under certain circumstances, so did they. No raise for them in years, no steps, and they did concede to many issues- read it!! So their families don't count, the raises they depended on don't count? The board is composed of people who have NEVER taught, some do not even have a college degree. Greedy- really, this is America, we have a right to fight for what we believe in and what is owed to us. I am not a teacher in the district and I do not live in the district. How would you feel if your boss who made your decisions had no experience directly related to the field? Furthermore, the arbitrator that was sent in the first time reviewed the documents and budget adn found there is ample money to pay them. That money sat and collected interest for four years +--- without a teacher none of you would even know how to read- many would have been in gangs, jail, or without a job if school did not exist. As far as them having their summers off, if you all think it is so easy then you should have gone to school to be a teacher. READ THE DOCUMENTATION before condeming, it makes many of you seem really uneducated ont eh matter and only providing your opinion based on a few news reports or hereay. There is no way that if you read all of the documentation that there would be so little understnading (I amnot saying compassion), for the teachers. What about all of the teachers that just got laid off- is that what makes everyone happy- teachers being fired. What about the board- it is so obvious that they have a political agenda--- give it a year or two, see where their interests lie, it wil be in office somewhere politically- fools!— knbk1010
- really- are you a teacher? The job goes far beyond 8 hours a day and 180 days. Teachers plan all year long; moron— knbk1010
- Put an end to the union controlled failed public school system. Privatize all schools as the Governor of La is doing and post a sign reading: unions need not apply.— danandsis
