NESHAMINY - The 500-member Neshaminy Educational Support
Professional Association (NESPA) on Oct. 24 ratified a new four-year contract
which allows the school district to outsource up to 73 union jobs, including
those of bus drivers, teachers’ aides, clerical staff and custodians.
The agreement, which runs until June 30, 2018, also
creates two levels of employees, those hired before the new contact, and those
who come on board after it takes effect.
The new hires would also receive less pay and have to
contribute more toward medical and health-care benefits.
The ratification announcement and the details of the
33-page tentative contract are posted on the Neshaminy School District’s
website: www.neshaminy.k12.pa.us.
According to the website, the school board is scheduled
to vote on the contract at the Oct. 28 meeting. Once approved, the agreement
will take effect immediately.
With certain exceptions, most of the terms of the
previous five-year contract, which expired June 30, remain in effect.
The biggest notable change is the once-hotly disputed
issue of outsourcing jobs.
Under the new agreement, the district is now allowed to
replace up to 52 NESPA workers from four designated categories: custodial,
transportation, instructional aides and non-instructional aides.
Transportation includes school bus and van drivers.
Employees in the instructional-aides category are:
library, instructional assistants, home economics aides and suspension aides.
The non-instructional aides are listed as: building
security, clerical staff and dining room employees, as well as playground and
school bus aides.
To accomplish the district’s outsourcing goal, the
contract offers a one-time early retirement package to NESPA members, which if
they accept, will get 17.5 percent of their 2014-2015 base pay placed into
their individual retirement account.
Those wishing to take part in the early-retirement offer
have until March 1, 2015 to notify the district, and must leave their jobs no
later than next June 30.
The new agreement states that any of the 52 workers who
retire early can be replaced by contracted services at any time during the term
of the collective bargaining agreement.
Meanwhile, if less than 52 current NESPA members in the
four designated categories opt to take the early-retirement plan, then the
school district has the right to lay off employees in those categories until
the 52 positions are reached.
Any layoffs must be done according to seniority, with
those with the least amount of tenure being the first to be laid off.
The contract also stipulates that if any NESPA employees
who are not in the four designated categories decide to retire early, those
jobs will not count towards the 52 positions available for outsourcing.
The school district also has the right to contract-out
even more jobs.
During the term of the contract if any jobs in those four
categories becomes vacant for any reason, then the Neshaminy has the right to
fill up to another 21 positions through contracted services.
In addition, the pact allows Neshaminy to contract out
its food services, as long as the union is giving a 90-day notice.
The agreement also lets the district continue contracting
out those services that it has done in the past.
Newly-hired NESPA members will also be earning
considerably less pay.
Salaries for all workers hired after June 30, 2014, when
the old contract expired, will be less much lower than the pay scale for the
old employees.
For example, in the final year of the contract, tenured
custodians will earn a top pay of $23.66 an hour and bus drivers’ hourly pay
will be $23.09.
However, in 2017-18 the top hourly scale for newly-hired
custodians is only $13.52, while bus drivers hired after this past June 30 will
make $17.11 per hour.
The same is true for all the all other categories workers
that NESPA represents.
As far as health insurance, those newly-hired workers who
started their jobs after the contract is officially ratified will only receive
medical insurance for themselves.
If they want family health care benefits, they will have
to pay the difference in premiums.
Under the contract, all NESPA employees will have to pay
slightly more of the premiums for their dental, vision and prescription plans.
The contract also stipulates that all part-time union
members will not be entitled to benefits unless they work more than 30 hours a
week.
However, those NESPA members classified as part-time who
were hired before June 30, 1993, will continue to receive benefits if they work
at least 25 hours weekly.
There are also some minor changes in the number of
holidays off, as well as the use of vacation and sick days.
Certain Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs), those side
hotly-contested agreements added to contracts after they are ratified have been
scrapped.
One which had designated longevity pay for those who
started working before June 30, 1993 has been removed from the new contract.
In addition, an MOU which had stated that certain health
care contributions that the school board made to Neshaminy Federation of
Teachers (NFT) members match the those giving to NESPA has also been removed
from the current collective bargaining agreement.
Although for the last few months contract talks between
the school board and NESPA were contentious, often with dozens of NESPA members
showing up at board meetings, they were nowhere near the protracted NFT
negotiations which had dragged on for several years.
In late June, the school board and NESPA had received the
fact-finding report from the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) which
had recommended that the district outsource aide positions for playgrounds and
cafeterias, as well as for custodial work.
However, the PLRB had suggested that food services
positions not be contracted out until July 2016.
The PLRB lawyer who was appointed as fact-finder also had
recommended that 50 full-time teacher’s aides, as well as non-instructional
aides, be reclassified as part-time so that the district would not have to
provide pension and health care benefits.
In addition, the fact-finder had recommended a four-year
contract, while the union had wanted a five year deal and the district was
seeking a three-year pact.
On August 5, the school board had voted unanimously to
reject the fact-finding report.
The day before the school board's rejection, the union
also overwhelmingly had thumbed down the findings.
Both sides had been in contract talks since last January.
Meanwhile, in June 2010, NESPA’s rank-and-file
overwhelmingly had approved a five year deal which was retroactive to the
2008-2009 school year.
The union had received no raises in the first three
years, a 2.5 percent pay hike in 2012-13 and a three-percent increase in
2013-14.
In addition, NESPA members had agreed to contribute 15
percent toward their health-care costs.
At the time that the previous contract was settled, both
sides had agreed to remove outsourcing from the bargaining table.
Source: Bucks
Local News
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