ST. TAMMANY PARISH, La. — After three heated hours, a St. Tammany Parish School Board committee voted Thursday night to restart contract negotiations between the district and the union representing teachers and school staff.
It will be another week before the full board can approve it, giving negotiators even less time to come to an agreement before the start of the school year. If they cannot, the union president warns employees may leave the understaffed district or even vote to strike.
Board President James Braud said in an interview before Thursday’s meeting that he doubts there will be a contract by the start of the school year. “There's a lot of work between now and then, I'm pretty confident that we will not have a CBA in place in three weeks,” he said.
The back-and-forth began Monday when District 15 Representative Michelle Ruffino Gallaher introduced a motion to reject the proposed collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the school district and the St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees. It directed the Superintendent to institute an employee handbook in its place. The 91-page CBA addressed pay, benefits, teacher incentives, and other matters.
Gallaher and other members expressed concern about certain clauses in the CBA and argued they had not been given enough time to give input. “It was 91 pages,” Braud said Thursday, “very difficult to read, it had a lot of problems that the School Board saw.” He says board members were given 5 days to review the document.
On Monday Brant Osborn, President of the Federation, told the board that the Federation would receive a rejection of the CBA as “an act of war.” The motion passed anyway.
There was intense backlash in the days following. District 12 Representative Michelle Hirstius announced she would introduce a motion to reopen negotiations between the Federation and the district, which was to be voted on by a committee Thursday.
Union members, parents, and members of the public packed the School Board building for the meeting. During his opening statement, Braud announced he was modifying the motion to specify that a 2-year CBA would be negotiated. The original term was 4 years.
About 2 dozen people lined up to speak at the podium during the public comment section of the meeting. “Teachers’ input directly translates into a better learning environment for our parish’s children,” one said, growing emotional. “We as teachers deserve to be respected,” said another.
Then board members were given a chance to speak. Several said that they supported the CBA and just wished to modify it, while others fought against its existence as a whole. “Each and every one of you are protected by labor laws, you are protected from discrimination,” said District 9 Representative Gia Baker, arguing the CBA was redundant with state and federal law.
Other members said they would fight for it. District 8 Mike Peterson, who voted in favor of Monday’s motion, told the crowd that their public comments had moved him. “I’m certainly going to support the CBA,” he said.
After three hours, the committee passed the motion with a 9-3 vote. It will now go before the full board at next Thursday’s meeting.
Osborn told WWL Louisiana that Thursday’s meeting was “about hope,” and expressed optimism about the negotiations. However, if a CBA is not in place by the start of the school year, he warned that members will not be bound by its “no-strike” clause and that a strike is still “absolutely a possibility.” He said leadership will “respond to the membership if the membership votes to strike or some type of work stoppage, we have to exercise their right to strike.”
He also said he knows of multiple employees who have already begun seeking work in other school districts due to the uncertainty of the CBA. He warns there could be more, calling the board “unbelievably short-sighted.”
The board did approve certain pay raises and teacher incentives that were originally included in the CBA. Those will go into effect regardless of the outcome of the negotiations.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.