Collective Bargaining: It’s Working in Virginia
November 12, 2024
November 12, 2024
Under Virginia’s new collective bargaining law (passed in 2020, implemented in 2021), public school employees can negotiate contracts with school divisions for the first time in nearly a half-century. The law is not even close to perfect and VEA members are working to improve it, but in the meantime, educators around the state have taken their new rights and run with them. They’re organizing, collecting signatures, holding representation elections and, in some places, have already gone to the table and improved conditions for both students and educators through bargained contracts.
Read on to find out what your colleagues in Arlington and Richmond have accomplished. They’re just two examples, with more to come in future issues. Also, see “Big Steps Forward” at the end of the article for more highlights of statewide progress.
A Contract Rises from the Ashes in Arlington
Arlington Education Association members had seen better days: An embezzlement scandal and the accompanying media attention had seriously damaged the union’s reputation, both with members and in the public eye. The timing could hardly have been worse. As AEA rebuilt, overhauling policies and bringing in new leadership, the county’s school board passed a collective bargaining resolution, officially kicking off the contract negotiations process.
AEA members responded quickly and efficiently to their unique challenges. Under the leadership of new president June Prakash and in the space of seven months, members organized, retooled, and collected enough signatures from county educators to trigger a vote to represent them at the bargaining table. AEA would be negotiating for two brand-new bargaining units, one for licensed personnel and one for support staff members.
Prakash had to assemble bargaining teams for each unit and, after careful consideration, chose a support staff team of Danielle Jones, AEA’s vice president, who is an instructional assistant and speech and debate coach; Ivis Castillo, an experienced school bus driver; and Cesar Celis, a registrar. Chosen for the team representing licensed staff was 22-year veteran teacher Rosa Navas; high school special ed teacher Lisa Fowler; Brennan Divett, a middle school history and social studies teacher; and Basma Joseph, an elementary school exemplary project teacher.
“I felt that the system made it very difficult for educators to be effective,” says Navas. “The erosion of respect for educators and the salary freezes experienced over the years in the district had left us disenchanted and disheartened. It was time to get in some good trouble.”
Time was short. A new school year was about to start and bargaining proposals were due in just over a month. UniServ Director Lisa Staib guided both teams through an extensive process of gathering member feedback, researching other contracts, and reviewing current Arlington Public Schools policies and regulations.
“The first few meetings became research that went onto the walls of the conference room of AEA,” says Navas. “Sticky notes were all over the wall, with topics of possible CBA articles. We questioned everything. Do we want this? Do we need that? What aren’t we seeing? What do teachers and support staff want and need?”
“I remember walking into the office one morning after the teams met,” says Prakash. “I saw paper all over the walls of our conference room, filled with sticky notes color-coded by bargaining topics. I remember smiling and thinking to myself that I had chosen the right people for the task.”
The two bargaining teams met frequently during September, and AEA secured organizational leave for the committee members for day-long marathons of writing and revising proposals. Meetings were sometimes together, sometimes parallel, and the teams worked in lockstep on every contract article that applied to both. This unified approach and supporting what each unit wanted separately, whether it was 45-minute consecutive planning time for teachers or having APS pay for uniforms for support staff, helped make this effort valid to all APS educators.
As the first meeting with APS drew near, VEA Statewide Organizing Specialist Amanda Kail taught us negotiation skills, such as the importance of note-taking during sessions, calling a break or a caucus and, most importantly, some tips on reading the room.
Another significant strategy that the licensed staff team developed was helping overworked special education teachers. Right from the start, it was clear that there was a huge need to create something very specific for them. “Our task was huge for all educators, but we had to alleviate the huge burden on special education teachers in Arlington,” says Fowler. “We proposed four days of release time to give SPED teachers much-needed time to work on all the paperwork that consumes their day. In addition to the release time, we proposed to no longer be reassigned to other duties when we should be providing services to our students in the classroom, to have coverage during IEP meetings and finally, receive clerical support for special education meetings and records.”
On the support side, the team agreed to do everything possible to restore dignity and respect in ESP jobs, and work for a bona fide living wage. “So many of us cannot afford our rent and health care,” says Jones. “Often, we’re forced to choose between groceries and paying for utilities.”
Negotiations ran through the school year and, unfortunately, two things quickly became very clear: first, the 1 percent salary increase proposed by APS would not meet the needs of educators of the district; and second, if negotiations continued at the pace they were going, there would be no agreement ready for ratification before educators went home for summer break. In light of this, AEA proposed increasing the meeting lengths and also requested an impasse hearing over salaries.
Impasse means that both parties are unable to make further progress toward an agreement. So, AEA and APS would go before a neutral arbiter and present their “best and final” compensation proposal. APS had to prove it didn’t have any more money in their budget than the 1 percent it had offered, and AEA had to prove that the school system could afford more. Whatever the arbiter decided would be non-binding for APS (meaning, they didn’t have to agree to it).
Enter Josh Folb, AEA’s compensation chair, a math teacher and, for many years, AEA’s expert on the APS school budget. Every year, when the superintendent presents a budget, Josh spends the following weekend devouring the 400+ pages to analyze trends and pinpoint deficiencies. Clearly, if anyone could find more money in the budget it was Josh, so he was the obvious choice to take the lead in presenting to the arbiter. He was joined by Jones and, together with VEA staff attorney Moriah Allen, they prepared AEA’s proposal, setting the stage for a showdown at an impasse hearing.
“This was a ‘trust but verify’ situation,” says Staib. “We knew the APS Budget was tight, but we also believed there was more money that could be allocated for salaries.” AEA was right: In the end, the arbiter was persuaded that APS could afford a little more and recommended 1.25 percent, which was accepted by the school board.
After the impasse, both units thought significant progress was being made and ratification loomed on the horizon. However, trouble developed for the Licensed Unit as negotiations wound down. “We thought all our efforts were going to fall apart,” says Navas. “Without going into much detail, we were at a point where tempers flared, and people actually walked out. It was horrifying to think that nine months of negotiations were about to go out the window, but APS and AEA ultimately understood the assignment. The next day we were able to look at each other, take a breath, and sit at the table to work things out. At the end of that day, we were emotionally spent, but we knew that we had gotten to the finish line with most of what we wanted for our educators.”
Both teams hammered out tentative agreements, which were sent to AEA members for ratification. Fortunately, APS moved quickly and educators left for the summer knowing they’d be protected by collective bargaining agreements in the new school year.
As of this writing, AEA’s CBAs are the most extensive in Virginia: the Licensed contract has 49 articles, and the Support contract has 50. Some highlights:
“My favorite pastime at my new school is finding SPED teachers and asking them if they know about the release time they’re now entitled to,” says Navas. “The surprised faces, and the instant recognition that SPED teachers had their back at the negotiating table—that makes it all worthwhile.”
“We are all so much better off now that our rights as employees are there in writing and cannot be changed without our agreement,” says Castillo. “This is huge, especially for transportation because we are often left behind when other employees are lifted up. I can’t wait to see how things change and improve under the contract!”
“When we embarked on this journey,” says Prakash, “we knew it would not be easy. We faced resistance, skepticism, and numerous challenges. Yet, we remained steadfast, driven by the belief that every worker deserves a voice, a seat at the table, and the power to shape their working conditions. Our strength has always been in our unity, our collective resolve to fight for what is right.”
—the following AEA members contributed to this article: Ivis Castillo, César Celis, Brennan Divett, Josh Folb, Lisa Fowler, Danielle Jones, Basma Joseph, and June Prakash, along with UniServ Director Lisa Staib
Richmond EA to School Division: Do the Right Thing
By Melody Nikol Winters, REA Board Member, MEd, CI, CT, NIC, Nationally Certified ASL Interpreter
For more than 20 years, ASL Interpreters in Richmond’s public schools got what other educators who drive instruction had always earned: continuing contracts, placement on the teacher pay scale, and the same benefits as our teacher colleagues. In fact, as an ASL Interpreter, I served on the bargaining team for the Richmond Education Association’s Licensed Personnel unit, which encompassed employees on a teacher pay scale. After the contract was signed and ratified, I naturally expected it to be honored for ASL Interpreters. To my surprise, it was not.
The six ASL Interpreters were told by Human Resources that we’d been issued the “wrong” contracts for over two decades. HR revoked our continuing contracts illegally without the due process they guaranteed. In addition, we would be stripped of our tenure, the Master’s lane, and would be moved into the Central Office bargaining unit. Instead of a contract, we were given a “Notice of Appointment” and would become at-will employees; we could be fired at any time for any reason given 10 business days notice.
With help from VEA’s Department of Legal Services, we filed a grievance. We felt we had won when the Richmond Public Schools’ representative concluded that our continuing contracts should not have been taken without some kind of process, and advised that we negotiate back at the table, since we had been sent to bargain with a new unit. We accepted this decision as an avenue to demand our contracts be restored, but when we went to the next bargaining session, the lead negotiator for RPS announced she would discuss proposals for everyone in the unit except the ASL Interpreters.
Finding ourselves at another dead end, we decided our best move was to take our case directly to the school board. We managed to get the ear of a trusted school board member who said she would try to present our case. To say the stress was horrible is an understatement. By the time we got to the final stages, it seemed our best chance was to get enough votes to reinstate our continuing contracts for only one year, meaning the board would have to review it again the next year. This felt daunting and overwhelming, as I had already cancelled two summer trips in order to mount a force and be ready for fall and the board. It would be a barrage of negative emotions if it had to be done all over again for the next school year.
At the board meeting where our continuing contracts were to be discussed, a long line of people waited to speak behind our REA Vice President: a past and present Deaf student, a past and present Hard of Hearing student, a LIEP teacher, a Kindergarten teacher who has taught D/HH kids for years, parents of current students, and the four of the ASL Interpreters who were union members. I went first and explained why I was again there to speak: RPS needed to give back our continuing contracts, and this time, I was not alone.
After public comments, most people went home and I sat alone, except for one other REA board member, waiting for nearly three hours to hear the board speak on what they had heard us say. Would they give us the contract back for a year? Would the known team of union-busting lawyers working for RPS squash us as in other cases? Did anyone even care about our tiny group of six dedicated employees who served a small, low incidence population in a large district? How would I face work the next day if we lost? I sat wringing my hands.
Then, it happened. The superintendent put up his hands and said if the board wanted to go against legal advice and restore our contracts, well, they were the board and they could do it. Our board member quickly made a motion that our contracts be restored—not only for this year, but annually. Before the motion unanimously passed, each of the nine school board members spoke their yes. And they weren’t done: they wanted to hire a special education attorney, a collective bargaining attorney, and a worker rights attorney to protect others in the future. I hope this happens, and that our win will help others.
In that moment, I felt like I got my life back. The six of us got our career back, certainly, and at least some dignity. I could freely speak up for Deaf and Hard of Hearing kids’ rights again without wondering if I’d be canned after 23 years of service. I could breathe. Our jobs and retirement benefits were off the chopping block.
The next morning, our contracts were ready to be signed, raise included, the Master’s stipend and tenure back in place—as if it never left. It was so easy for RPS to just take it, and then, just put it back. It occurred to me that the division had teams of people working to find ways to take what was rightfully ours, and we, after working our 40-plus hours with the kids, returned home exhausted to respond to whatever they had concocted up all day to try to illegally take what we had worked for and been promised. It’s about tenacity. It’s about not taking no as an answer. It’s about trying, and trying, and trying again. It’s about not being quiet even when no one wants to hear it anymore. It’s about having the mindset of an educator, and a belief in beating the odds. It’s about asking others you cared for to now care for you. It’s about an ethical drive to do what is right. It’s about banning together to form a collective voice. It’s about establishing a union.
Richmond
Falls Church
Arlington
Prince William
Montgomery County
According to a poll conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University, 66% of Virginians say public schools do not have enough funding to meet their needs.
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