A clarification re: minimum salary increases...

December 15, 2021

Dear HTEC Members,
 
This evening the HTH Board of Directors approved an agenda item to unilaterally raise the salary of all educators to at least $57,200 on the basis of it meeting the state’s minimum salary to exempt them from having to pay overtime. The Board agenda also stated that HTEC opposed the decision.
 
While Site Representatives discussed this at last week’s Rep Council meeting and are in the process of sharing the rationale with educators at their sites, we wanted to make sure you heard directly from us as well.
 
First and foremost, changes to the existing salary schedule are a mandatory subject of bargaining under state law. The school cannot legally alter the salary schedules, or the rules associated with them, without bargaining with educators first. 

The school first emailed us about their desire to increase salaries on December 6 and stated they would provide bargaining dates in January to discuss salary. They asked us to waive our right to bargain over raising salaries by allowing them to make the unilateral decision, giving us a deadline of December 10 to notify them if we agreed. After discussing the issue with Site Reps on December 9, the officers notified the school that we would be happy to consider the issue in depth at our first bargaining session and reiterated our request to get to the bargaining table as quickly as possible.
 
We also pointed out that their legal analysis was not accurate and that there are ways to comply with state law without unilaterally altering salary schedules without bargaining. Most notably, the school could comply with the law by paying overtime rates (1.5x the employee’s hourly rate) for any work done beyond 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week. We have not been provided a list of how many HTEC members would be impacted, but we believe that it would be more lucrative for some, if not all, unit members to be paid overtime rather than increasing the annual salary to a level that no longer requires overtime to meet the new minimum wage requirements. Our officers did not feel comfortable making the unilateral decision to sign off on a last minute salary raise to some staff when that might effectively take away the overtime they would otherwise be owed, as we know teachers often work lots of time outside of their actual teaching hours. Discussing the issue openly at the bargaining table would give us a better picture of the overall impact.

More importantly, our Site Reps, Officers and Bargaining Team agree that providing a raise to some employees but not all is divisive. Ironically, this is the school’s rationale for not wanting to provide overtime for employees under the salary exempt threshold. Our strength as a union comes from unity, and we believe our best path to lifting salaries as a whole is by bargaining together rather than separately. That’s why we’ve been pushing for bargaining dates since October; so that we could address issues like this as a Collective without an imminent deadline.
 
As it stands, our response to the school today remains what it was last week:
 
“We understand that HTH has options to comply with the law, such as providing timecards and overtime pay, until we're able to bargain increases above the salary exempt threshold. We look forward to HTH bringing a comprehensive salary proposal, including any proposed raises to minimum pay, to the first bargaining session.”

At tonight’s board meeting Dr. Meadows resigned as CEO of High Tech High. While Dr. Meadows was the public face of the issues currently affecting HTH, we want to make it clear that the challenges before students and educators go well beyond one individual and are a sign of systemic problems.

We hope Dr. Rashad, in his role as interim CEO, shares our vision of High Standards for High Tech High and has the authority to bargain a contract that resolves many of our challenges.
 
In Solidarity,
The HTEC Officers