New C.B.A. Ratified by Members, Board Votes Next

YOUR 2012-2013 ESPAŃOLA-NEA COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT


The new Collective Bargaining Agreement between your Local and the District was ratified by the membership today, June 20, 2012.   The Board of Education is set for their own ratification vote Thursday, June 21, 2012.
Negotiated with the Espanola Public Schools by and for you through your negotiation team: Dolores Salazar, Lucille Martinez-Holguin, Cornelio Martinez, Kim Avila, Tina Telachy, and Michael Lapcevic. Patti Thomas helped the team prepare. The team is advised by NEA-NM-NM UniServ Director, Charles Goodmacher.  NEA-MEMBERS ONLY were eligible to vote to ratify or to reject this agreement.

AGREEMENT HIGHLIGHTS:
1) We merged separate Certified and E.S.P. (Education Support Personnel) Agreements into one comprehensive agreement. This makes it easier for everyone to understand and follow the rights and responsibilities of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
2) More employees are covered by the Agreement: Most Office Managers and Head Cooks and Head Custodians are now clearly covered by the Agreement.
3) The Grievance Process is much fairer and more meaningful reversing a national trend to take away employee rights . Now each side must follow the time limits, or they lose their case. It used to be that employees lost their grievance if we did not follow on-time, but administrators could ignore time requirements without a loss.
4) No more “we’ll give you comp time” which you then can’t use. Custodians and other Support Personnel are to be paid for over-time worked, possibly at time and a half.
5) Extra pay for Custodians who do their own duty and also that of an absent colleague when no sub is available to do the work of that absent colleague.
6) ALL employees must now receive evaluation forms at the beginning of the year so there will not be end-of-the-year surprises upon evaluation.
7) Should the District receive more funds during the year, negotiations re-open over compensation. In the meantime, employees earning more than $20,000 receive a slight increase in take-home pay since the District will now pay a larger share of contributions toward your retirement.
8) I.D. cards must now be swiped by all employees at the beginning of the work day, but for Certified, it will still not count as evidence of arrival (and there is no requirement for Certified to “swipe” out at the end of the day).
9) Winter Break stays as two full weeks, and Spring break will still be one full week, but is not tied to the basketball tournament schedule. The administration may schedule other days off when our Sun Devils go to the state tournament.

In related news: a settlement was reached with the District providing for payment of stipends to participants who successfully achieved the goals of the TIF program in 2010-2011.  Stay tuned for more details after the agreement is finalized.