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Backed by her members, United Educators of Pittsfield president Jeanne Lemmond asked the School Committee to "support and honor our work" by finalizing the contract agreement the two sides reached Jan. 30. PITTSFIELD — The union representing city teachers is tired of waiting for the contract it agreed to with the Pittsfield School Committee months ago to be finalized.
But the School Committee’s chairman, William J. Cameron, said Thursday that the union has made an additional post-negotiation demand that stands between the two sides and a signed contract. Members of United Educators of Pittsfield donned their red union T-shirts and filled the City Council chambers at Wednesday night’s School Committee meeting.
They demanded the committee finalize the tentative agreement so it can go to a vote, saying the delay is hurting morale. They also set an April 15 deadline for either a signed agreement, or as-yet unspecified “measures" members will undertake. In a statement, Cameron broadly characterized the issue at hand.
"There has been much back-and-forth between the parties over additional demands that seek, among other things, to create further administrative burdens and place further costs for the School Committee; yet they were not the subject of negotiation during our many months of bargaining,” Cameron said in a prepared statement. “These new demands are the actual reason for the delay in approving the contract. We would have a ratified contract with the UEP already in place but for the UEP's new demands.
” Cameron also said the School Committee intends to meet in executive session at 5 p.m. Monday to “determine the Committee's response to additional contract demands.
” Union President Jeanne Lemmond said the problem stems from the length of time the two sides bargained, and resulting confusion over what's in the deal. "Because we negotiated for over a year, the discussions and what the union thought was agreed to ..
. because of the delay in writing the language a lot of things have been lost in translation," she said. "The issue has been what language did we actually agree to.
" Lemmond is "thrilled" that the School Committee is meeting on Monday. "If we can get that information from them first thing Tuesday morning, I plan on still proceeding April 15 with the general membership to review the entire package," she said. On Wednesday night, Lemmond and several union members told the committee the delay is hurting the schools’ teacher recruiting efforts and is preventing teachers from submitting retirement paperwork.
She said newly hired teachers are reconsidering their employment prospects in Pittsfield as a result of the delay — one that came after a 13-month negotiation that ran well past the current contract's expiration date. “The union feels that we cannot, nor should not, have to wait any longer for this agreement,” Lemmond said to loud applause from her members. “The UEP has waited patiently long enough for this contract to be completed.
" “Get it done,” someone shouted loudly from the gallery amid the applause. The teachers, far and away the city’s largest public employee union, are working under the terms of the previous contract, which was reached in 2022 and expired in August. Absent immediate action, Lemmond said, the union will meet Tuesday and take one of two steps: “We will either be having a Q-and-A and a vote on the proposed contract the next day with the finalized agreement that the School Committee has finally delivered to us; or the union will be discussing the measures that will be put into place immediately,” she said.
Cameron said it’s the union’s right to meet, but said the committee would not be bound by an “arbitrary deadline.” “Some might see the UEP's calling April 15 a deadline as only the latest instance of the union's unwillingness to accept that once an overall agreement is reached ..
. bargaining is finished,” he said. The post-agreement process for ratifying the contract started with both parties to the deal and their lawyers — the School Committee on one side, the UEP and the Massachusetts Teachers Association on the other — reviewing the proposed language to assure it reflected their negotiated intent.
Once it's finalized, it will then go to both sides for approval votes — first, the union, then the School Committee. In additional pro-union comments Wednesday night, elementary teacher Justin Kie Burdick said he was “shocked, disheartened, and frankly repulsed” by the lack of progress. While Kie-Buirdick also blasted the possibility of School Committee members receiving a raise, Cameron and vice-chair Daniel Elias clarified that the committee did not ask for the pay increase proposed by the City Council.
That proposal is now before the Personnel Review Board. Elias went a step further, saying he doesn’t want a raise at all. Wearing a mask, Crosby Elementary School teacher Carole Castonguay, a 31-year veteran, told the committee she was sick over the the weekend, but returned to work not fully recovered so she could be present for her students taking the MCAS exams.
She expressed frustration that she was back in her red union shirt in front of the committee asking for a timely settlement. "What's it going to take," elementary school teacher Carole Castonguay asked the School Committee on Wednesday about the lack of a finalized contract months after an agreement was reached. “Here we were doing it again, and I just don't want to be here.
I'm tired, OK?" she said. "I'm not really, totally well yet. I didn't want to come here, but I couldn't not come here.
...
What does it take?” The committee's two student representatives, Taconic senior Janayah Jones and Pittsfield High senior Elizabeth Klepetar, spoke generally in support of the teachers' cause. "It's sad to see teachers who supported me so well come here so upset and tired. I just think something needs to happen," Jones said.
"I think we need to support teachers and listen to what they're saying." "If we didn't have teachers, we wouldn't have a school," Klepetar added..
