District, teachers' union agree to extend contract one year
The Philadelphia School District and its largest union have reached a tentative agreement to extend for one year the contract of 15,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, secretaries, and other school workers.
The Philadelphia School District and its largest union have reached a tentative agreement to extend for one year the contract of 15,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, secretaries, and other school workers.
The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has scheduled a special membership meeting for Thursday to vote on the proposal, officials announced. The current contract expires next year.
What's not clear is whether the extension includes financial concessions of any kind. The district has long maintained that it must get $75 million in savings from its five unions to make ends meet. The PFT clearly figures into that plan.
PFT president Jerry Jordan had previously said he would not negotiate with the district.
During former Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman's tumultuous final weeks, Jordan clarified that stance.
"As long as that superintendent is in place," he told The Inquirer in August, "we will not discuss concessions."
Union members are due a 3 percent raise Jan. 1. Their last raise, also 3 percent, was in September 2010.
Jordan, who did not return calls for comment, said in a statement, "During this time of transition at the school district, and in a weak and uncertain economy, the PFT and the district agreed that it was in the best interest of students, teachers, staff, and the community not to compound the uncertainty by opening negotiations in 2012, when the current collective-bargaining agreement expires."
Jordan said both sides had agreed not to discuss details until members were briefed and had discussed the proposal at their special meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Liacouras Center at Temple University.
The law that created the School Reform Commission gives it the power to break union contracts for fiscal reasons, and the SRC had threatened to use that power if unions did not negotiate. But the SRC has since backed off.
The principals' union has already accepted concessions.
Last month, the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators agreed to delay raises to save 27 assistant principal jobs. The union representing district mechanics, bus drivers, and cleaners rejected concessions, and the district has issued about 1,200 layoff notices to those workers, saying it would reconsider if the givebacks were accepted.