Diana Stricker Photo
There were smiles from both sides as the first contract was approved for paraprofessionals in the Branford School District. The four-year pact will be retroactive to when the group joined the union two years ago.
“I’m glad that we finally have a contract … after two long years,” Local 222 president Pam Van Winkle told the Eagle following Wednesday’s meeting of the Board of Education (BOE). “We’re happy that we’re no longer at-will employees, and that seniority will count.” However, union leaders said later there is a way to go regarding wages and benefits. She is pictured above with Superintendent of Schools Hamlet Hernandez.
The pact covers a total of about 130 paraprofessional and lunch aides who voted in June 2011 to become members of Local 222 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. Contract negotiations were ongoing since January 2012, and a mediator was appointed by the state last summer. The contract includes a slight increase in the starting salary, and increases in the hourly wages and benefits.
The BOE approved the contract with a unanimous vote by five of the nine members who were present: Susan Wharfe, Mario Sabatini, Frank Carrano, Mary Grande and Michael Krause.
VanWinkle, a literacy paraprofessional at Mary Murphy Elementary School, said concessions were made on both sides. “It’s a first contract. It’s a starting point,” she said.
First Contracts
There was no discussion of the contract terms during the meeting. Carrano, who chairs the BOE, told the Eagle the board is pleased with the contract. “We reached an agreement that is favorable to both sides,” he said. “First contracts are always difficult to reach. … It’s a good-faith effort.”
Van Winkle said some issues of wage disparity were resolved. She said previously a para who had a teaching certificate was hired at a higher hourly rate than one with a college degree but no certificate. “Now all paras will be hired at the same rate because we really are doing the same job,” she said. Here she is pictured with union leader Ed Gatavaski.
The previous pay scales for paras were complicated, and ranged from a starting salary of $11.54 per hour; to a top wage of $18.85 per hour for paras with the most experience. Van Winkle said union negotiators tried to simplify the levels and bring some parity.
In a subsequent interview Van Winkle said that under the terms of the new contract, paras at the top wage of $18.85 per hour will receive 0 percent increase in the first year, and 1 percent in each of the following three years. Paras with 10 years service who were typically earning $12 or $13 per hour, will receive 4 percent in the first contract year, and 5 percent in each of the following three years. Paras who worked at least five years and earned around $12 per hour, will receive 3 percent for the first year, and 4 percent for the following three years.
“It’s coming up to a respectable wage,” Van Winkle said. “Hopefully, we can continue to raise the pay rates (in future contracts), because they are still too low.”
The new contract also brings some increases in benefits. For example, full-time paras who work 30 hours per week will now have seven sick days per year instead of six. Part-time paras who work less than 30 hours per week will now have four sick days instead of three.
Van Winkle said she was not thrilled with some of the concessions, but said the contract is a “stepping-stone to build on.”
Van Winkle addressed the school board in January when the paras were frustrated at the amount of time it was taking to reach a pact. “We would like to be respected and we would like to be appreciated,” she told the board. She said she didn’t think people understood the duties of the paras, who provide academic reinforcement for students in small group settings or individually.
In September, about 30 union members and sympathizers gathered in the school parking lot prior to a BOE meeting to express their concerns about delays in the contract negotiations.
Shortly after the union vote was taken in 2011, four special education paraprofessionals were terminated, but were reinstated after the union filed a series of legal complaints against the BOE. Click here to read about the firings. They were later reinstated.
Annie MacDonald, a field organizer for the union, told the Eagle in 2011 that contract negotiations could not begin until the issue of the paras being fired was resolved.
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