Letters from GPA Leadership
December 2019
Letter from GPA Leadership in response to November Bargaining
Key points:
- Actions by some teachers are disheartening and also serve to put the whole GPA community at risk.
- SDEA salary proposal will put GPA into closure within a few years.
- "Just Cause" status takes years to process and creates financial hardships.
September 2019
Letter from GPA Leadership, in response to Bargaining and attempts by SDEA to block the NAACP award and other SDEA lies
Bargaining Update
Articles Proposed and/or Countered by GPA (to date)
The table to the left shows the contract “articles” that have been proposed by GPA so far in this process. It is important to note that the original demands, made by teachers in November 2018, included 7 targeted areas; which has now become 17 articles SDEA is proposing upon GPA. Although the list has more than doubled since teachers unionized with SDEA/CTA, those bargaining on behalf of GPA are committed to writing proposals that meet the unique needs of our students.
Bargaining time
GPA offered additional hours (on top of the hours already scheduled) of bargaining time during the already-busy months of November and December. SDEA was still dissatisfied and reminded GPA that GPA we did not find more time to meet with them, the SDEA bargaining team members could request to use valuable teaching time to bargain instead of teaching students.
Updated Articles
December 2019 (soon)
SDEA Proposed
GPA Proposed
January 2020
SDEA Proposed
GPA Proposed
February 2020
SDEA Proposed
GPA Proposed
march 2020
SDEA Proposed
GPA Proposed
april 2020
SDEA Proposed
GPA Proposed
Articles Proposed and/or Countered by GPA as of November 20
ASSOCIATION RIGHT/union business
Special education
SDEA Proposed
GPA Counter
safety and student discipline
SDEA Proposed
GPA Counter
Shared Decision-Making
SDEA Proposed
GPA Counter
Term
SDEA Proposed
GPA Counter
Teacher vote using red dots
Additional Information
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.
What is Collective Bargaining?
Additional Information
Often, workers hear about collective bargaining without fully understanding it. Here it is in a nutshell:
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)
Qu
Can employees lose wages or benefits as a result of collective bargaining?
ANSWER: Yes.
Very often, people believe that they cannot lose things (i.e., wages, benefits, or other things) if they are unionized.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Collective bargaining (or negotiations) is a two-way street and, as importantly, it is about leverage.
Both the National Labor Relations Board, as well as the federal courts, have recognized that employees can win, as well as lose as a result of collective bargaining.
A union’s only power is to ask the employer for something.
If the employer says “no,” the union’s leverage is to try to get the employer to change its mind—usually by striking.
An employer’s leverage, on the other hand, is its ability to outlast the union–often by replacing striking workers.
what is the difference between a union promise and a union guarantee?
People often vote to unionize on the belief that, somehow, the union will solve an issue that they have—whether it’s wages, benefits, or even unfair treatment.
By law, (under NLRB precedent cases) unions can promise to fix whatever it is that employees have trouble with.
However, the reality is, unions cannot guarantee one single improvement for employees.
All a union can do is ask. It is up to the employer to decide whether it will agree to the union’s requests.
The bottom line is: Union promises are not guarantees.
how long untill an agreement
Sometimes collective bargaining could take more then 3 years. Bronfenbrenner studied a representative sample of hundreds of NLRB representation elections conducted between 1999 and 2003 and found that many of the unions that won representation were never able to bargain a first contract. As shown in the chart, a majority of organized units had no collective bargaining agreement one year after the election. Within two years, more than one-third still had no contract, and by three years that portion was still around 30%. (Source)