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YOUNGSTOWN -- It's been about five weeks since the city's striking teachers returned to the classroom after a one-year contract was ratified, yet many of them are now upset because they have yet to receive retroactive pay and a 3% wage increase they were promised, their union head says.
"We agreed to something; we went back to work and did our part," Eric Teutsch, the Youngstown Education Association's president, said after the regular board of education meeting Tuesday at Choffin Career and Technical Center.
Two two-week pay periods have passed since teachers returned to work Sept. 18 -- ending a nearly four-week contentious strike that began Aug. 23 on what was supposed to be the first day of school -- and a tentative agreement between the 450-member YEA union and the district had been reached two days earlier.
Nevertheless, the teachers have not received the raise promised in the contract, Teutsch contended.
More than 99% of the YEA membership voted to approve the new contract, Jim Courim, union spokesman, said last month.
Throughout negotiations between the two sides, a thorny issue had been the union's insistence that the board change language in the YEA's contract left over from the state's 10-year takeover of the district, specifically, the state-appointed Academic Distress Commission made possible by passage of House Bill 70.
Other issues centered on disagreement regarding Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor's authority, as well as language pertaining to how teachers are transferred and promoted.
Teutsch noted that under normal contract negotiations, a tentative agreement is signed, at which time raises contained in the language are granted, then the final contract is reviewed and drawn up. This time, however, the administration has said the contract has to be finalized before the teachers receive their raises and back pay, Teutsch argued.
A Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School music teacher expressed her frustration during the session's public comments portion, saying she and other YEA members bargained in good faith and that the situation is not the union's fault. She also was part of the negotiating team.
Batchelor said that the final contract "is pretty much done," but added that removing all references associated with HB 70 is timely because such wording is spread through all parts of the pact.
"It's not as simple as people are making it out to be," he said, noting that some flaws were discovered regarding the original salary scale being revised. "We're trying to get it right."
The 3% raises are the only part of the contract that is being held up, Batchelor added.
District Treasurer Bryan Schiraldi, who met with Teutsch on Tuesday, echoed Batchelor's comments, saying that efforts have been underway to make the necessary adjustments.
Such work is arduous also because of the YEA's size, meaning a lot has to be looked at in the contracts, he said.
Schiraldi added that the teachers have not missed any paychecks since their return, and that their health care benefits were immediately restored after the strike.
It is hoped everything will be worked out no later than early December, he said.
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