SAN FRANCISCO TEACHERS ask State Mediation in contract impasse
26 May 2007
Pay increase offered by the San Francisco Unified School District to teachers won’t buy a lemon, asserted Union President Dennis Kelly yesterday. Proposed wage hike breaks down to 59-cents per day while current price for a lemon is 96-cents, Kelly said.
Photos by John Han
Sentinel Photographer
Copyright © 2007 San Francisco Sentinel
By Pat Murphy
Sentinel Editor & Publisher
Copyright © 2007 San Francisco Sentinel
The San Francisco teachers union has asked California State Mediation and Conciliation Services to intervene in contract negotiations declared at an impasse Thursday by both the union and School District.
In a sharp rejection of the latest School District offer, Dennis Kelly Friday termed the offer “insulting.”
Kelly, president of United Educators of San Francisco, also scored the district for waiting until Thursday to make the offer.
“The decision comes after nearly four months that we have spent in bargaining at the table and we have signaled in every possible way that we wanted to end this round of contract negotiations by the end of school this year so that we could start with this contract in place on July 1, so that the new superintendet would be coming into a situation that was settled, and so that we could open the next school year with everything taken care of in an air of tranquility and harmony,” Kelly said in a union office press conference.
“We were extremely disappointed when the School District put off any kind of decision on presentation of any kind of financial package until yesterday.
“And what they walked in with — after keeping us waiting all through the morning — was the offer we found to be insulting and totally unacceptable.
“It called for a one percent salary increase effective April of 2008. And a two percent increase effective April of 2009.
“That means it would be an effective one-quarter of one percent. Now, one-quarter of one percent for next year would mean that a beginning teacher, who makes $45,000, would receive the equivalent of $2.99 a week for the 38 weeks of school work.
“Two dollars and ninety-nine cents a week means that they would receive approximately 59-cents a day.
“We tried to figure out what you could buy with that money. We sent our secretary across the street to Safeway and asked her what she could get for 59-cents and she brought back one lemon.
“One lemon costs 99-cents.”
“The School District has said to the teachers that ‘we are willing to support you going forward to next year at the rate of six-tenths of a lemon a day.’
“Some offers, if they are so insulting, they are better not to be made at all and that’s the way we have to feel about this.”
San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson described the offer as insulting to anyone who works under collective bargaining.
“When President Kelly informed me last night of this insulting proposal, part of the reason I am here is because we’re going to being watching this very closely at the Labor Council,” Paulson told reporters.
“This isn’t just an insult to the hard working teachers and parents and those who work in the schools but this an insulting offer to anybody who works under collective bargaining.”
PAT MURPHY
Sentinel Editor & Publisher
In his youth, Pat Murphy worked as a General Assignment reporter for the Richmond Independent, the Berkeley Daily Gazette, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He served as Managing Editor of the St. Albans (Vermont) Daily Messenger at age 21. Murphy also launched ValPak couponing in San Francisco, as the company’s first San Francisco franchise owner. He walked the bricks, developing ad strategy for a broad range of restaurants and merchants. Pat knows what works and what doesn’t work. His writing skill has been employed by marketing agencies, including Don Solem & Associates. He has covered San Francisco governance for the past ten years. Pat scribes an offbeat view of the human family through Believe It or What.
JOHN HAN
Sentinel Photographer
For the last year, John Han served Sentinel readership as a freelance photographer. He has that natural eye for photography which cannot be developed or learned. He has earned a following of clients, including the World Affairs Council of Northern California. John joined the Sentinel fulltime in April, 2007.
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