A St. Paul Public Schools teacher strike sidelining more than 4,000 employees and some 38,400 students could be less than two weeks away.
The St. Paul Federation of Teachers said all three bargaining units voting Wednesday easily authorized their leadership to strike. That includes 85 percent of voting teachers, 90 percent of educational assistants and 82 percent of school and community service professionals.
The union said it would give notice of intent to strike Thursday, starting a 10-day cooling off period before a strike can begin. They’re considering walking off the job as early as Feb. 13.
Meanwhile, negotiators will continue meeting with state mediators Friday and Wednesday as they work toward a new two-year teacher contract.
“Nobody wants to go on strike, and we will do everything in our power to prevent one. However, we are going to fight for what our students need and do not apologize for working to create the schools St. Paul children deserve,” union president Nick Faber said in a prepared statement Thursday.
The school district said schools would close in the event of a strike because there aren’t enough substitutes to cover classes. Any days missed could be made up after June 8, which was scheduled to be the last day of the school year.
FAMILIAR STORY
St. Paul hasn’t seen a teacher strike authorization since 1989, but contentious contract negotiations are nothing new for the district.
This is the fourth straight negotiation that has ended up in mediation.
In 2016, after union leaders threatened a strike vote, three board members joined the final overnight negotiating session where a deal was reached after 24 hours.
That agreement cost the district $17 million over two years.
This time around, the district says it can afford just $6.4 million — enough to raise everyone’s salary by 1 percent each year, with no extra commitments to hiring additional staff.
INEXPERIENCE SHOWED
Board member Steve Marchese was one of three board members at the marathon February 2016 negotiation, just a month after he and three others took office.
He said the board’s presence at the negotiating table was necessary because of the broken relationship between the union and then-superintendent Valeria Silva’s administration. But the board’s inexperience showed.
Marchese said the new union-endorsed board members shared many of the union’s concerns. Eager to improve school climate, for example, they committed to spending $4.5 million over three years on a restorative practices pilot program.
“What I wish we’d known then was the extent to which the district’s financial situation was as precarious as it is,” Marchese said.
TIGHT BUDGET
Last year, as the board was finalizing its budget, Marchese warned that the district needed to rein in labor costs after overspending on previous contracts.
Besides salaries, the board took aim at class size limits implemented in 2014, which the district says cost them $32 million in additional labor. When contract negotiations began, they proposed loosening those student caps.
The union proposed the opposite: even smaller class size limits, plus new hiring ratios and mandates to get more nonteaching staff in schools, as well as art, music and English language teachers.
Given enrollment declines and years of eight-figure budget cuts, Marchese said he was “a little perplexed” to see the union’s contract proposals this school year. He said the union shouldn’t expect board members to “swoop in and save the day” this time.
“We’ve been through two budget cycles so we know what the problems are,” he said.
NEW REVENUE
The union since 2011 has used contract talks to not simply raise wages but also secure commitments that improve learning conditions.
But this year, the union and district can’t agree on how to pay for those efforts.
At a budget advisory committee meeting last February, a Department of Education representative gave a presentation on Q Comp, the state’s alternative compensation program that requires a nominal element of performance pay.
If lawmakers authorize more funding for Q Comp, it could generate $6.2 million in state aid and $3.3 million from St. Paul taxpayers each year.
The St. Paul district remains eager to join, but the union has refused.
“That would go a long way,” board member Jon Schumacher said Thursday.
ASKING FOR MONEY
Speaking at the same meeting last February, Faber gave a list of conditions, some requiring a change in state law, before the union would consider participating in Q Comp.
He then pitched a partnership in which the district would help pressure wealthy local corporations and nonprofit hospitals and colleges to make voluntary payments to the schools.
The school district is willing to talk with potential benefactors, but only if the union agrees to participate in Q Comp.
“Our members are incredibly disappointed that the school district has so far refused to work with us, but as educators, we remain committed to creating the schools Saint Paul children deserve,” Faber said last month in announcing the strike vote.
Faber did not return a phone call for this story.
The union also has proposing seeking more revenue through a local property tax referendum in November. The school board would rather wait till superintendent Joe Gothard has a new strategic plan in place.
Further, Schumacher said, it would be hard to sell residents on a tax increase if the district hasn’t taken advantage of free state money through Q Comp.
“We really feel that we have to find every revenue source available and we have to maximize it,” he said. “That to us is really an important piece of the whole picture.”
