Letters from GPA Leadership

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Bargaining---------

The truth about collective bargaining: 

The union, not the teachers and other employees, decides what to propose in negotiations;

The parties must negotiate in good faith, but there is no time limit on how long it may take to reach agreement, and no requirement that an agreement actually be reached;

The union may have made many promises (for instance, tenure), but it cannot guarantee any of them will come true.

SDEA Dues: $1,120 per year ($112 a month for 10 months) , each unit member must pay, unless you opt-out.  Also noted "Unit members that choose to become a member will have the opportunity to vote on whether or not the contract is ratified."  This means if you do not pay SDEA Dues, you will NOT get to vote on the SDEA contract with GPA.  According to the Unions April 26, 2019, Newsletter.  You can, however, Vote NO to the SDEA representing you, and you do not need to be a due payer to do that.

Recently proposed during the bargaining session, Teacher Salary Scale submitted by the UNION, is for 205 days.  This means, because of the UNION one size fits all mentality, all teachers will be REQUIRED to work 205 days, no summers off.  The teachers that were told they would get their summers off, they were lied to by the GTA. Because of the UNION, we lost all flexibility in our work year agreements, and our individual rights to negotiate summers off.  You can, however, Vote NO to the SDEA representing you, and you do not need to be a due payer to do that.  Get your individual rights back!

****Also noted in the proposed Teacher Salary Scale:  1st-year teacher could potentially make more than a 6-year teacher who has been with Gompers Preparatory Academy based solely on educational units.  You read that correctly, a teacher that has been with GPA for 6 years could make less than a 1st-year teacher.  San Diego Education Association is not what teachers want at Gompers Preparatory Academy! SDEA Opt Out Today or VOTE the SDEA Out!

Risks of Negotiations There is no guarantee a union will obtain higher pay or better benefits. In fact, the union cannot guarantee negotiations will not result in a reduction of wages or benefits.

The union’s collective bargaining with Gompers Preparatory Academy puts each of us in a position where we are individualy unable to ask for extra income for stellar work.

SDEA/CTA/NEA value seniority over effectiveness. Thus, as long as the union is negotiating salary schedules on behalf of every teacher at Gompers Preparatory Academy, everyone with the same education and experience will earn the exact same salary.  Without the SDEA/CTA/NEA, you could actually negotiate your own salary and could receive performance-based raises or bonuses.

Collective bargaining is one of the cornerstones of the National Labor Relations Act.

Simply put, collective bargaining—also called negotiations—is the process where an employer bargains with a union (or other representative) over “wages, hours of work, and other terms and conditions of employement.”

As written, the National Labor Relations Act Section 8(d) explains collective bargaining as the…

• Obligation to bargain collectivelyFor the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively is the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, and the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party, but such obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession… [Emphasis added.]

What this means is that, under the law, employers and unions have to bargain and neither party can refuse to bargain. 

However, it also means that they do not have to agree. 

There is also no time limit to negotiations. 

Often, negotiations takes months and, sometimes, even years to reach an agreement–if the parties can agree. 

Going to work at an already-unionized employer is much different than unionizing a company for the first time and attempting to reach a first-time agreement. 

Initial, or first-time negotiations often take much longer than , as the entire employment relationship is negotiated, it often takes much longer than negotiations 

In fact, for newly unionized workers, studies have shown that unions fail to reach to reach agreements nearly 50% of the time.

• In cases mediated and closed by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in 2003, only 56.5 percent of new bargaining units had achieved a contract within the inaugural year (FMCS 2003 Annual Report.) In his 1987 study, Eisenscher (1999) estimated that 5 years after recognition only 47 percent of workers were able to win second contracts and according to Gordon Pavy of the AFLCIO’s Center for Collective Bargaining, of the 74,309 workers winning bargaining unit representation in 2003, only 37,000 will still be union members in 2008. [Source.]

Despite this abysmal track record, unions still sell thousands of workers on the idea of unionizing.

In the end, though, everything workers have (i.e., wages, benefits, and other conditions of employment) gets bargained over.

As a result, workers can end up with more than they currently, or may end up with less.

(Source: Truth About Unions)