Wednesday, August 26, 2009

August 26th Negotiations Session

We met today with district negotiators at the AHEM office. We responded to the District's last language proposal, had an extensive discussion about their "special skills" language that would undermine seniority rights, and got new language proposals from the district. The district's latest economic proposal restored our current health insurance benefits, but no movement on salaries or ABE/ECFE equity. We are concerned about the lack of movement over the past two months. We agreed to set additional meeting dates, but also told them that we will be filing for mediation*.

We'll keep you posted.

Your negotiators,

Paul, Sandy, Vicki, LeMoyne, David, Gary, and Julie

*Mediation is where a third party from the State Bureau of Mediation Services is assigned to work with the parties in reaching an agreement.