April 28 Bargaining Update

HTEC Members,

Yesterday our bargaining team met with the CMO for another full day of bargaining. 

As a clear indication that our unity and pressure on the CMO is working, we finally received an official contract salary proposal despite being told at our last session that a proposal was likely not coming before Governor Newsom provided a revised budget proposal in mid-May.

Unfortunately, that salary proposal fell well short of our goals. The proposal includes the CMO’s previous offer of a salary schedule that would only provide a salary increase for less than half our members for the current school year. It would provide roughly a 2-percent increase for everyone starting next school year.

The proposal also includes a one-time bonus payment of $1,000 per year for educators who worked each of the past two school years. While the CMO indicated this payment would serve to "honor the additional work related to the COVID-19 pandemic," only educators who remain with the school through September 15, 2022 would actually receive the payment. If the intent is really to recognize how hard we worked with our teaching partners to recreate school three times over in the past few years, why wouldn't they provide it to all of us? For this reason, it definitely feels more like a too-little, too-late retention bonus to try to avoid losing us, but if that's their goal, a comprehensive and equitable adjustment to our salary to show they recognize what we do would be much more compelling.

In response, and in recognition of the CMO finally providing a salary proposal, our bargaining team put together an additional packaged counter-proposal of salary and benefits. We wanted to get a counter back to them quickly to show our commitment to reaching a fair agreement as soon as possible! Package proposals are presented as multiple issues that can only be accepted or rejected in tandem. 

Our package proposal accepted the CMO’s previous benefits proposal that captured the status quo on benefits rather than pushing them to increase health care contributions. In exchange, we proposed a salary schedule that provides a raise for ALL HTEC members and moves us much closer to comparable wages with other charter and district schools in the region. The changes from our previous salary proposal include:

• Eliminating the addition of new pay scale columns that would provide additional raises for unit members who have additional credits but have yet to earn advanced degrees. We still love the idea of encouraging our development with more columns for credit earned in the future, but heard the CMO that the added complexity makes it difficult to bargain this right now and conceded this in hopes of a speedy resolution with a better salary framework.
• Changing the top column label to make sure unit members with two master’s degrees know that this is equivalent to a Doctorate on the salary schedule so they can maximize their salary

Our counterproposal also included:

• Eliminating the frankly kind of insulting retention bonus disguised as a COVID bonus and instead using those funds to provide comparable salaries retroactive to September 1, 2021
• Cutting the number of steps on the salary schedule to allow educators to maximize their salaries within 25 years rather than the current 32 years
• A one-year agreement that would allow us to bargain salaries for 2022-23 once state funding for the year is known

Our bargaining team also presented five counter proposals that covered Grievance Procedures, Safety, Evaluation, Collective Rights, and Management Rights. 

We’re pleased to announce that we reached tentative agreements on Grievance Procedures, Safety, and Evaluation. Yeah!! Tentative agreements will be presented to members for a ratification vote once a final contract agreement is reached. Highlights include:

Grievance Procedure

Full Tentative Agreement Here

• The ability to address contractual violations with a fair and transparent process that allows for a neutral third party to resolve any difference through binding arbitration

Safety

Full Tentative Agreement Here

• A process for educators to identify any safety concerns and be provided with a written response outlining the process and timeline to rectify any hazardous or unsafe working conditions

Evaluation

Full Tentative Agreement Here

• Enshrines and protects project-based learning as a component of teaching at HTH
• Creates a collaborative Collective-CMO committee that will allow us to develop a unique, responsive project-based learning evaluative model for ourselves that fits the way we do things

Collective Rights

Full Counter Proposal Here

• Accepts the CMO’s proposal that HTEC Representative and Officers/Board Members be released for no more than two days a year for union meetings and trainings, at the Collective’s expense
• Includes the ability to release one HTEC Representative for up to a year at a time, at the Collective’s expense, to allow our union leadership to be able to focus on union-related business

Management Rights

Full Counter Proposal Here

• Acknowledges the CMO’s right to make decisions about non-bargainable issues and topics not covered by the final contract
• Eliminates the CMO’s request that the final contract be suspended for up to 90 days in the event of an emergency, which would prevent us from enforcing the terms of the contract in certain circumstances