Custodians' union employs handbill strategy
Laurel Hillyer hands fliers to drivers leaving Rock Bridge High School on Tuesday urging parents to contact school board President James Whitt. Custodians are trying to pressure the school district to accept their demands in collective bargaining.
Columbia Public Schools custodians are using a new negotiating strategy by taking their message directly to the people.
They’re distributing handbills at schools to parents dropping off and picking up their children. The effort started Tuesday morning, said Regina Guevara, field representative for Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 773.
The union is seeking its first collective bargaining agreement with Columbia Public Schools for district custodians. The union has represented custodians at the University of Missouri since 1972, organizers said.
“Parents, family, friends, please support your school custodians,” the handbill begins.
The handbill requests people tell the Columbia Board of Education to not fire custodians without cause, with the group claiming they are only asking for “basic fairness.”
“We want someone we trust in the room with us when disciplined,” it reads. “We want to be able to challenge unfair and unjust discipline.”
The union wants the collective bargaining agreement to include a grievance procedure for due process for custodians who have been fired or suspended without pay. The CPS negotiating team has issued its final proposal, which does not include that.
Union organizers called it a union-busting tactic and said there is no reason to have a union without some job protections.
“We’re fighting for our rights,” Guevara said.
Guevara passed out the handbills as school let out Tuesday at Rock Bridge High School. She stood at one exit road with Laurel Hillyer, a union steward and a custodian at MU. Union field representative Mel Casteel was stationed at another school exit.
Guevara said a collective bargaining session last week did not alter the school district’s stance.
“Nothing worked to change their minds,” Guevara said. She said the handbill campaign is a strategy to get their message heard.
CPS Chief Financial Officer Linda Quinley, spokeswoman for the district’s team negotiating with the custodians’ union, said the union team last week rejected the district’s final proposal and the school board plans to consider the matter next month.
The school district and the teachers’ union also are at odds. The district’s final offer did not include the Columbia Missouri National Education Association’s request for salary increases for teachers and restoration of salaries for a year in which teacher salaries were frozen.
The CMNEA team issued a counterproposal that dropped the request for a salary increase, but retained the request to restore the frozen salaries. It also sought to protect “teacher-directed” planning time.
The CPS negotiating team has stopped attending scheduled collective bargaining sessions with the CMNEA team and has not responded to the counterproposal.
Guevara said union organizers on Tuesday distributed 167 fliers.
The handbill asks people to call school board President James Whitt and tell him that the board should accept the custodians’ proposal.
Whitt on Wednesday morning said he had received one call so far. He said the caller only wanted to inform him that his contact information was on the literature.
Whitt said he is leaving comments about negotiation to the negotiating team.
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