The Prince William Education Association and the Virginia Education Association, the native group’s statewide father or mother group, have agreed to submit the signatures they collected in favor of collective bargaining to the college division for verification.
This article was written by WTOP’s information associate InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free electronic mail subscription immediately.
The Prince William Education Association and the Virginia Education Association, the native group’s statewide father or mother group, have agreed to submit the signatures they collected in favor of collective bargaining to the college division for verification.
In March, the union submitted an affidavit stating it had collected the requisite majority of signatures from the division’s state-certified staff to type a collective bargaining unit. Once the signatures are verified, the School Board will have 90 days to undertake or reject a collective bargaining decision laying out who will give you the chance to cut price with the division and for what.
State-certified staff embody academics, nurses, specialists, counselors, librarians, psychologists, social employees, speech pathologists and extra. Bus drivers, upkeep workers and meals service staff don’t fall into that class.
The signatures have been in possession of the VEA in Richmond because the Board and the union have gone back-and-forth over how the signatures will be verified, with union members saying some signers concern retaliation from division management if recognized by directors.
“The VEA has agreed to submit their petition according to our process for validation of their signatures through our verification process,” Board Chair Babur Lateef stated in an announcement. “This process will begin in the next few weeks. This process is consistent with our desire to have an open and transparent process that can reassure the public with fidelity.”
The submission of the signatures ought to finish a months-long dispute over the verification course of, with Board members saying they wished to make sure that the signatures have been genuine and represented a majority of the bargaining unit and union leaders saying they wished to defend the privateness of their signers. After a number of deadline extensions, the School Board issued an announcement final week giving the union till Wednesday to submit the signatures.
PWEA President Maggie Hansford couldn’t instantly be reached for remark by InsideNoVa Thursday.
Passed in 2020 by the General Assembly, a brand new legislation took impact final yr granting public sector staff the fitting to type collective bargaining models for the primary time because the Seventies, however the corresponding governing our bodies have last say in whether or not to interact in collective bargaining.
The native union says it has over 5,000 signatures to current, and on Wednesday evening plenty of academics in help spoke in the course of the School Board’s public remark interval. They urged the Board to take motion on the signatures. Teachers have spoken continuously concerning the added stresses and workloads they’ve carried because the begin of the pandemic and through an rising instructor scarcity. Prince William’s academics, on common, earn under these in most different Northern Virginia localities. Superintendent LaTanya McDade has stated that rising instructor pay is a precedence, and the fiscal 2023 finances that simply handed the School Board and Board of County Supervisors features a 7% common pay elevate for all workers.
“How can we expect society to treat our educators with the respect and appreciation they deserve when our own School Board continues to disappoint and is creating additional roadblocks?” Magally Hurtado, a substitute instructor with the division, informed the Board. “If we trust them with educating our children, if they have proven time and time again that they will do what is needed to educate our kids, why can’t you trust them?”
According to Lateef, the perimeters have agreed upon a course of by which union representatives will present their playing cards to division human assets workers. Employee identification numbers will be used to confirm that the signatures are from present division staff, however solely job titles will be recorded. He stated the Board desires to know what number of from every place – academics, nurses, social employees and extra – signed. He stated the entire course of ought to happen over the following few weeks.
Still to be determined are what points the group can cut price on and who precisely will represent the bargaining models.