Bargaining Session #8 - Tuesday, September 27th

We have reached a tentative agreement. Give current economic conditions, our AHEM team believes this is an acceptable offer.

The next step is for the AHEM Executive Board to vote on sending the tentative agreement to the membership for a vote. Our Board will meet on Monday, October 3rd at 4:30 pm. A Representative Assembly will follow at 6:00 pm to hear the specifics of the proposal.

Next, members will receive written details in their buildings by Wednesday, October 5th. Members will have a week to consider the proposal. AHEM Negotiators will hold informational meetings on Thursday, October 6th and Monday, October 10th (specific locations and times to be announced shortly). If approved by the Executive Board and Representative Assembly, a vote will be held on October 12th and 13th (specific locations and times to be announced shortly).

We believe that our ability to come to reach a tentative agreement this early in the year was the result a willingness to come to the table, focus on only the most essential issues, and all the support of our members.

Thank you so much for your support and we look forward to sharing the details with you soon,

Your Negotiators - Paul, LeMoyne, Vicky, Jay, David, Gary, and Julie

Bargaining Session #7 - September 22nd

Today’s meeting lasted fifteen minutes.  We exchanged new offers and the district team will bring our proposal to the school board on Monday night (they will discuss this in executive session, so you won’t be able to see it in person or on cable).  We will update you Tuesday on the school board’s response. 

As always, thank you so much for your attention and your support.  Until Tuesday…

Your Negotiators - Paul, LeMoyne, Vicky, Jay, David, Gary, and Julie

September 8th Update

We working on setting up a meeting with district negotiators the week of September 12 to continue working to settle our contract which expired July 1.  Over the summer, we came to agreement on a number of language items, but still have some to resolve.  We are now focusing on the economic part of the settlement, which is generally the most challenging.  Both the district and our side worked to open with pared down proposals to move more quickly, partly to catch up after the state shutdown delayed financial information by two months. As you would expect, our first offers did not match up.  Now we need to see if we can find a compromise both sides can support.  We’ll keep you posted.

Your Negotiators - Paul, LeMoyne, Vicky, Jay, David, Gary, and Julie

Bargaining Session #6 - August 16th, 2011

We met with district negotiators this morning.  Now that school district budget information is available (due to the state shutdown, those numbers were about two months late), our focus for today was to make our first economic offers.

Both sides worked to pare offers down to the most essential points in an effort to seriously work toward an early settlement.  The meeting was productive, but we have more work to do to reach agreement.  We plan to meet next week after the district team meets with the school board. 

Our best chance for an early settlement is to come to an agreement by the end of August.  We will continue to work hard toward that end and keep you posted,

 

Your Negotiators - Paul, LeMoyne, Vicky, Jay, David, Gary, and Julie

Bargaining Session #5 - Friday, August 5th, 2011

Today we started our bargaining session with more specific discussions of contract language items and then began broaching some economic items.  We believe both sides have shared their major priorities as far as contract language, though we still need to finish specifics in a number of areas. We ended the meeting by planning our next session.   

On Tuesday, August 16, we will be meeting for a full day to exchange economic proposals and discuss compensation ideas.  District Chief Financial Officer Michelle Vargas will kick off the meeting with a description of district finances.  This next meeting will tell us a lot about our chances for an early settlement.

Thanks for reading and we'll keep you posted, 

Your Negotiators - Paul, LeMoyne, Vicky, Jay, David, Gary, and Julie

Bargaining Session #4 - Thursday July 21st

We met today with the district to continue our discussion on contract language items.  We came to some agreement on language additions to the contract and began discussing some economic issues. We are encouraged to hear that the district team and school board are interested in settling sooner than they have been in the past.  Toward that end, we agreed to set a number of meetings in August, including a couple of longer, more intensive meetings. 

Once those dates are set, we’ll let you know.  Thanks for following our progress and we’ll keep you posted.

Your Negotiators - Paul, LeMoyne, Vicky, Jay, David, Gary, and Julie

P.S.: For those of you who want to join the discussion we are having on Facebook about the annual teacher evaluations in the education bill passed during the special session, visit us here:  http://tinyurl.com/6xkg93r

June 22nd Negotiations Session: Welcome to a New Round of Bargaining!

Thank you for visiting our site! Our goal is to keep you updated on our progress in negotiating our 2011-2013 contract. After each negotiating session or other major event, our negotiators will update this page with any news or progress toward a settlement.  You can also follow us on Twitter under 7007 (that's the number of our local) or on the AHEM Facebook page. We will post links back here on our social media as soon as this page is updated. We will also update our negotiations hotline at 651-695-2029 if you'd rather hear this info by phone. 

We held our third negotiations session this morning with the district team.  The district team this round is Paul Cady (district General Counsel), Brandon Nelson (Labor Relations and Benefits Department Director), Sheryl Ray (Evergreen Park Principal), Annette Ziegler (Coon Rapids Middle School Principal), Jeff McGonigal (Interim Associate Superintendent, previously Coon Rapids High School Principal).  Our team is Paul Goupil (Coon Rapids Middle School teacher and Lead Negotiator), LeMoyne Corgard (Oxbow Creek teacher and AHEM Vice President), Vicky Czerwinski (ABE/ECFE Teacher), Jay Wilkins (Anoka Senior High Teacher), David Kundin (Education Minnesota Field Staff), Gary Christofferson (Education Minnesota Field Staff) and Julie Blaha (AHEM President).

So far, we have had good discussions of contract language and each side has laid out some of their larger interests for this round of bargaining. One of the topics we discussed today were the ramifications of the current No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements on schools that don’t make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and how they could affect our contract.  We are also comparing information about economic issues like compensation and benefits, but until the legislature finishes their work on the state budget, we aren't able to get very specific.

We will be setting another meeting for mid July to continue these discussions.  We'll update this entry once we have the date.

Thanks for reading and we'll keep you posted, 

Your Negotiators - Paul, Vicky, LeMoyne, Jay, Gary, David, and Julie