STILL NO SETTLEMENT
8/31/06
Labor Day weekend has
arrived without new contracts in place for the teachers, support professionals
and substitute teachers of the district. The
PCT has been in touch with the Board of Education and expressed its willingness
to meet throughout the weekend to reach a settlement that would permit schools
to open smoothly. As of this
writing, the Board has not expressed its willingness to do so.
Throughout these
negotiations, the PCT has expressed a willingness to work with the Board on the
financial problems arising from the serious management errors of the recent
past. In fact, we even made a
proposal last spring that would have permitted the district to avoid the teacher
and support staff layoffs that will not permit us to do all that we have done
for the children of the community in the past.
Our proposal was not taken seriously.
In the ensuing
negotiations, we said to the Board unequivocally that we know these are not the
times to make significant advances for our members, even though we believe we
deserve them. We are simply trying
to hold on to what we have. Where
the Board is unable to meet our financial needs, we have offered to accept
non-monetary compensation instead. In
short, we have made every effort to more than meet the Board half way.
We hope the weekend will produce a settlement that will permit us to begin the school year on a positive note. In recent years we have been able to avoid the labor/management conflict that plagued us for so many years. It is our sincere hope that we will be able to continue to find peaceful solutions to the issues that divide us.
On Tuesday, September 5, 2006 at 1:30 A.M., the Plainview-Old Bethpage Congress of Teachers and the Board of Education came to terms on new three year contracts for the Teacher, Clerical and Substitute Teacher Units.