OEA Bargaining Update – Feb. 2, 2017

First, I want to thank all of you who were able to come to the General Membership meeting Wednesday. Since I know that not everyone could attend, and to reinforce what we talked about, I am providing this written bargaining update.

 Let me share where we are on specific proposals:

	OEA Position	District Position
Salary	7% for the 2016-17 school year or a total of 13% for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years.	1% increase for the 2016-17 school year
Health and Welfare Benefits	Current MOU increasing District contribution included permanently in the contract	MOU for 2016-17 only – no proposal for continuing contribution over 2015-16 level
Initial Placement on the salary schedule	No proposal from OEA	Up to 15 years of outside experience granted TO NEW HIRES ONLY
Binding Arbitration	Add a Binding Arbitration step to the grievance procedure	The District has rejected binding arbitration, stating: “The Board of Trustees have shown they are a fair arbiter of dispute over the contract.”
TK-6 Release Days (currently 2 per trimester)	Add PE and Music teachers to those who may use this time; reduce the number of total days to 5 (no more than two per trimester); increase the number of teacher-directed PLC sessions from one-per-month to two-per-month (every other session)	Add PE and Music teachers to those who may use this time; reduce the number of total days to 1 per trimester (3 per year)
Organizational Rights	Current Contract Langauge	Completely eliminate OEA President Release time
Working days and hours	Discussions ongoing regarding IEP time and zero period assignments/working during your prep	Discussions ongoing regarding IEP time and zero period assignments/working during your prep

At the presentation, we also showed members that the percentage of the district budget dedicated to teacher’s salaries and to all employee health and welfare benefits continues to drop, as it has since 2012-13.

We continue to ask that you:

·       Go to Dr. Blow’s Office Hours, Mondays 4-5 p.m.

·       Come to the School Board Meeting Feb. 15, 7:15 p.m., at the District Office

·       Fill out your survey

The next Bargaining Sessions are Feb. 22 and March 14.

Final PERB Decision

PERB Case No. LA-CE-6050-E 

The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has declared the decision in the Orcutt Educators Association v. Orcutt Union School District case related to exceptions made to the five-year cap on outside experience for the purposes of initial placement on the salary schedule to be final.  Attached to this email message is the official Notice to Employees.  This notice will also be posted at all work locations where notices to employees in the District customarily are posted for a period of thirty (30) consecutive workdays.

NOTICE TO EMPLOYEES

POSTED BY ORDER OF THE

PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD

An Agency of the State of California

After a hearing in Unfair Practice Case No. LA-CE-6050-E, Orcutt Educators

Association v. Orcutt Union School District, in which all parties had the right to participate, it

has been found that the Orcutt Union School District (District) violated the Educational

Employment Relations Act (EERA), Government Code section 3540 et seq., by unilaterally

implementing a policy that cre:tted exceptions to the five-year cap on outside experience for

purposes of initial placement on the salary schedule.

As a result of this conduct, we have been ordered to post this Notice and we will:

A. CEASE AND DESIST FROM:

l. Unilaterally changing policies by implementing a policy that created

exceptions to the five-year cap on outside experience for purposes of initial

placement on the salary schedule. ·

2. Interfering with the rights of bargaining unit members to be represented by

the Orcutt Educators Association (Association)

3. Denying the Association its right to represent bargaining unit employees .

B. TAKE THE FOLLOWING AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS DESIGNED TO

EFFECTUATE THE POLICIES OF THE EERA:

Rescind the policy that creates exceptions to the five-year cap on outside

experience for purposes of initial placement on the salary schedule.

ORCUTT UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT

Negotiations Update 2016 - Eliminate President’s half-time release and K-6 two day release

Aloha,

At our first bargaining session for the 2016-17 school year, the District made two proposals to eliminate language in our contract.

First, the District proposed to eliminate the paragraph that grants two full-day releases per trimester to TK-6 teachers and several other specialists (Article VIII, Paragraph 6). This time is used for collaboration, planning and/or evaluation. The District negotiator explained that the intention of eliminating teacher release time is keep teachers from losing instruction time with their students. The District would like students to spend less time with day-to-day substitutes; no other time or compensation for getting that work done was proposed.

Second, the District proposed eliminating the Orcutt Educators Association President’s half-time release, which is paid half by the District and half by the Association (Article XII, Paragraph 4).  In light of their first proposal, this proposal would, ironically, cause students in the President’s classroom to spend dozens of days each year with a day-to-day substitute, rather than the regular job-share partner.  It should also be noted that some sort of President release has been in the contract for well over 35 years, at least since the current President was a sixth-grader.

The District acknowledged that the cost of the president’s release time is not a substantial cost.  Eliminating release time would drastically diminish the Association’s ability to work on your behalf, which your team believes is the intention of their proposal, and also appears to be retaliation for all of your effective organizing during the last round of bargaining last year.

The District said it is not prepared to make an offer on compensation and health benefits, and they said they would not be prepared until December at the earliest.

From our side, we again proposed to include binding arbitration in the grievance process and several improvements to working days and hours, including compensation and/or time for those experiencing a large number of IEPs.

Your team had hoped for a better start to this bargaining season; clearly we will need your support to get a good result this year. Please dust off and start wearing your RESPECT buttons ASAP!

Our next session is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 14. We promise to keep you updated.

Mahalo,

Monique L. Segura

President, Orcutt Educators Association

Welcome Back

Aloha OEA members,

Welcome back to a new School Year and a special welcome to our new teachers!  We continue to work hard to be a support to all of our members!  Please see the OEA updates:

1.  We do not have dates set for negotiations at this time but both the Association and the District have sunshined their Articles for the table.  OEA has opened Article IV (Grievance Procedure), Article IX (Working Days and Hours), and Article X (Compensation).  The District has opened Article VIII (Class Size), Article XII (Organizational Rights), and Article X (Compensation).  We will keep you posted once we have dates on the calendar.

2.  The Orcutt Educators Association has filed an Unfair Labor Practice with the Public Employees Relation Board (PERB) regarding the Split/Payroll issue from last year.  At this point we are waiting to hear from PERB to see about a settlement conference.  Once again we will keep you posted as information comes to the Association.

3.  Health Benefits will increase this year.  I have met with Dr. Blow regarding this increase and she has stated that she does not have the authority to put an MOU in place to cover the costs of the increase. Starting September 30th we will all feel the increase of the Health Benefits being deducted from our paychecks. The School Board would like us to go through the negotiations process regarding this.  I have reached out to the District to get dates on the calendar as quickly as possible so that we can move forward.  Once again we will keep you posted on this very important issue!

4.  As some of you may recall the Association filed a Level 3 Grievance last year regarding initial placement on the salary schedule when hired into the Orcutt Union School District.  Our contract states "Five full years outside experience, including military service as described in Paragraph 4, will be allowed on the schedule for teachers new to the district.  Partial years will not be allowed.  Outside experience must have been completed during the last ten (10) years and adequate proof of this experience must be shown."  We were successful with our Grievance in September of 2015 by having our School Board unanimously rule in our favor.  The Association had also filed an Unfair Labor Practice with PERB and attended a settlement conference in the Spring of 2015.  At that settlement conference the Association learned that the School Board's ruling had not been implemented.  A settlement was not reached and on August 29th the Association and the District had a Formal Hearing at the Public Employees Relation Board (PERB) in Glendale.  The hearing is over and both lawyers (CTA lawyer and District lawyer) are scheduled to submit Briefs to the Judge by October 28, 2016.  The Judge will then make a ruling, but we do not have a time line attached to his ruling.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or suggestions.  Have a great 3-day weekend!

Mahalo,

Monique L. Segura

President, Orcutt Educators Association

805-714-9861

Labor Day BBQ

CSEA/OEA Sponsored Social Gathering