ST. TAMMANY PARISH, La. — After a wave of backlash from union members, the St. Tammany Parish School Board will vote on a resolution to revisit negotiations surrounding the district's Cooperative Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
James Braud, the board president, said some of the reasons why the board voted against the CBA were concerns tied to a 90-minute cap of duty and safety concerns tied to that, as well as fairness for non-union members, just to name a few. Braud said he supported putting the renegotiation resolution back on the agenda, but others have a different opinion.
Braud said, "I do support it, but it will not be unanimous. At this point, I feel comfortable that many of the board members will vote for it."
The parish Federation of Teachers President, Brant Osborn, said he, the superintendent, and the school board worked on the CBA for months, so he was blindsided by the decision to do away with it. However, he said he is looking forward to this resolution passing so they can move forward with addressing the board's concerns.
"The resolution gives them that input that they are craving. We will certainly listen to those concerns so we can make adjustments, but the bottom line is that it is very clear that the teachers and school employees want this," Osborn said.
Osborn said he is hopeful this resolution will pass so discussions can resume because they've already started to address concerns the board has brought forward.
"The superintendent and I operated in good faith which is what the board wanted us to do. We did our part; we want them to do their part," Osborn said.
Braud said that while he supports renegotiations, the board does have the right to move forward with an alternate plan if their concerns are not addressed.
"If it passes, we would direct the superintendent to continue negotiations. If it fails, well, we'll continue to develop some alternate plan, probably that would include all the benefits and all of the all of the aspects of the originals of the CBA that they've worked on for the last six months to develop and try to go forward with something to protect all the employees, rights and privileges," Braud said.
Thursday night's meeting is set to get started at 6 p.m. Osborn encourages anyone who wants to show support for the CBA to wear red.
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