Contributed Photo
After negotiations on a new contract hit an “impasse,” the school district and its custodians stopped talking and sent their dispute to a panel of arbitrators.
That’s the latest development in the city’s most contentious labor battle of the budget season, a battle over the jobs of 200 janitors that clean city schools.
With a long arbitration process set to begin on Sept. 1, on the first day of school, custodians will likely keep working for many months without a raise or any changes to their contract.
Custodians in AFSCME Council 4 Local 287 have been seeking to settle on a new contract to replace the one that expired on June 30, 2009. The two sides have sparred over the terms: Seeking millions of dollars in savings, the district is aggressively pursuing privatizing cleaning services. The union blasted the city for pursuing privatization, saying it would lead to “corruption” and cost workers their jobs.
The conflict exploded publicly on June 24, when the union held a rally against privatization — and the city released a counterattack revealing the results of an unannounced workplace raid.
That was the last day that the two sides sat down at the negotiating table, according to union officials.
Negotiations have hit an “impasse,” schools Chief Operating Officer Will Clark said this week.
The district and the custodians union have not scheduled any more talks. Instead, they have set up a panel to settle the dispute.
The panel consists of three arbitrators — one chosen by the union, one by management and third, neutral arbitrator chosen by both camps.
The district chose John Romanow, a former city labor director. The union chose Kevin Murphy, who is the director of collective bargaining and organizing for Council 4. Murphy was already one of the union’s lead negotiators at the bargaining table.
Marty Webber, a labor lawyer and longtime arbitrator, was chosen last month as the third, neutral member of the panel. He’ll serve as a referee between the other two arbitrators, who are advocates for their respective sides.
The panel intends to meet for the first time on Sept. 1. At that meeting, it plans to set a timeline for hearings, and will start to establish a list of all the issues relevant to the contract. Once that list is settled, the panel will hold an informal trial: it will take testimony from both sides on each issue, then issue a final ruling.
The central issue the panel must tackle is privatization.
The Board of Education (BOE) has already moved in that direction: It contracts a private company to clean its central office as well as a half-dozen school buildings. The rest of the buildings are cleaned by a unionized workforce.
The school board is now looking for a subcontractor to act as another layer of management above custodians. The subcontractor would have the option of hiring non-union workers.
The city sent out a request for proposals in December, seeking bids on a custodial services contract for the schools. Eight bids came in; the district has identified GCA Services Group, Inc. out of Pennsburg, Penn., as its preferred bidder. GCA’s bid called for paying workers $12.50 per hour instead of $17.
If the city hires GCA to get the job done, it would save $7 million annually, Mayor John DeStefano has said: The Board of Education spends $15 million to clean its buildings, using a mostly unionized workforce, and GCA’s bid came in at $8 million. The mayor is counting on a portion of those savings, $1.5 million, to plug a hole in this year’s budget.
As the city moves toward privatization, the union has launched a public campaign warning that privatization leads to waste, lack of transparency and even corruption.
The two sides still have the option to return to the table and strike a deal on a new contract in coming months before the arbitrators make a final ruling.
Sometimes, when a contract goes into arbitration, “both parties become more reasonable” and settle, said Murphy, who has been Council 4’s go-to arbitrator for the past 10 years.
“Here, that’s not going to happen,” he predicted.
Union spokesman Larry Dorman said the only way the talks will resume is if the district takes privatization off the table.
“The reason these contract negotiations reached impasse was because the city and the mayor are hell-bent on privatizing and destroying good jobs,” he charged.
The union has offered some concessions, according to Dorman. He said Local 287 is willing to sign onto a new contract that mirrors one recently settled with a small schools trades union. Proposed concessions included forgoing a raise for 18 months and switching to new health care plans, Dorman said. He said the concessions amounted to “significant savings,” but he didn’t give a dollar figure.
Dorman said the union will not concede the right to have schools cleaned by a unionized workforce.
With that central lack of agreement, Murphy predicted that a settlement will not come anytime soon.
“It’s going to be a long process,” he said.
What concerns me about the city's decision to privatize their workforce is how it could affect the children of the workers. I think I can safely assume that union custodians' children attend New Haven Public Schools. Therefore, if these kids' parents' jobs/wages/benefits are cut, their families suffer. As a teacher, I know economic stress on families is a major interference with learning in the classroom. It is also why teenagers have to prioritize work (both legal work and illegal work) over education. Healthy schools depend on healthy families. Healthy families depend on good jobs with living wages and benefits. There is no way to operate in a vacuum.