CPS Custodians Distribute Handbills About Negotiations

Custodians' union employs handbill strategy

Vivian Abagiu/Tribune

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.

By ROGER MCKINNEY

Wednesday, April 15, 2015 

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.

CEO Cuts Salary So All Have Fair Pay

Read how this amazing young CEO from Seattle thinks of his employees first by setting policies with them, provides unlimited paid vacations, and reads about a Princeton study that stated if everyone could make $70,000 a year, employees are "happy."  Read what 28-year old Dan Price did on April 15, 2015. 

Click link below to view video:

CEO Takes Pay Cut to Give Raises for ALL

SEATTLE (AP) — A Seattle CEO who announced that he's giving himself a drastic pay cut to help cover the cost of big raises for his employees didn't just make those workers happy.

He's already gained new customers, too.

"We've definitely gained a handful of customers in the last day or two," said Stefan Bennett, a customer relations manager at Gravity Payments, a credit card payment processing firm. "We're showing people you can run a good company, and you can pay people fairly, and it can be profitable."

Dan Price, chief executive of the company, stunned his 100-plus workers on Monday when he told them he was cutting his roughly $1 million salary to $70,000 and using company profits to ensure that everyone there would earn at least that much within three years.

For some workers, the increase will more than double their pay. One 21-year-old mother said she'll buy a house.

At a time of increasing anger nationally over the enormous gap between the pay of top executives and their employees, the announcement received immense attention. But corporate governance professor David Larcker of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business said it's unclear if Price's unusual gesture will start a trend.

"It's an alternative way to think about a tough problem, and I give these guys a lot of credit for laying it out there," Larcker said. "Whether this would scale to a bigger organization, it's hard to know. But it's clever, it's interesting and it's fun to think about."

Washington state already has the nation's highest minimum wage at $9.47 an hour, and earlier this month Seattle's minimum wage law went into effect. It will eventually raise base hourly pay to $15.

Labor unions and workers in the Seattle area on Wednesday joined national protests for better pay. Drivers for Uber and Lyft — the app-based car-hailing services — gathered in Seattle, while airport workers rallied at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In Seattle, police arrested 21 demonstrators who opted for civil disobedience to dramatize their point, refusing to move out of an intersection at the conclusion of their march.

Gravity's CEO launched the company from his dorm room at Seattle Pacific University when he was just 19. He's long taken a progressive approach that included adopting a policy allowing his workers to take unlimited paid vacation after their first year.

"I think this is just what everyone deserves," Price told workers in a video of Monday's announcement released by the company.

But he also acknowledged it won't be easy: The increased pay will eat into at least half the company's profits, he said, and he has no plans to simply raise rates on clients.

"It's up to us to find a way to make it work," he said.

Bennett, 28, went to college with Price and has worked for Gravity since graduation. He said he was already happy to work for a company that treats its employees and customers well in what he otherwise considers a predatory industry. For him, the raise will amount to about $10,000.

"I don't care as much about the money," he said. "But if I look at my colleagues, and what they talk about on a day-to-day basis and what their concerns are — just looking at their faces when Dan announced the pay increase, it was pretty phenomenal."

Results of 2015 Columbia School Board Election

King, Preis retain seats on Columbia School Board by comfortable margins

 updated 12:51 a.m. CDT, Wednesday, April 8, 2015

BY ANNALIESE NURNBERG

Columbia School Board: Members are elected on a districtwide basis.

King’s priorities: Continue and improve communication between the community and the board, allow teachers and professional leaders to have a voice in district curriculum decisions to enhance student achievement and exercise fiscal responsibility while managing student growth.

Preis’ priorities: Encourage student achievement by offering a solid curriculum and supporting teachers, enrich students’ experiences through extracurricular activities and foreign language learning and increase opportunities for all children to succeed regardless of background or socioeconomic status.

Other positions

Common Core:

King and Preis both support Common Core. Both believe it is important to have national standards that allow the district to make comparisons across the state and nation.

Teachers’ salaries:

King said she thinks the community would like to see Columbia teachers’ salaries at levels similar to teachers in other comparable cities.

Preis said that because education is a prominent part of Columbia’s economy and workforce development, it is important to provide competitive wages to district employees.

Small autonomous schools:

King supports small autonomous schools but defers to the superintendent and assistant superintendent to decide when a school is ready to become an autonomous school.

Preis also supports small autonomous schools and supports giving parents the option to choose the type of school they think is best for their children.

Reaction:

Cheery folk music filled Broadway Brewery where King and Preis held their joint watch party. The two incumbents made their way around the restaurant smiling, hugging friends and chatting with supporters as they waited for results to be posted.

A shout of "SCHOOL BOARD!" rang out when final results popped onto a television screen and confirmed the duo’s reelection, followed by cheers and claps throughout the restaurant.

King said she is thankful for everyone who helped her in her reelection effort.

"I really feel like I did in 2009 and 2012," King said. "I'm truly grateful, and I felt like Darin and I ran a good campaign, an honest campaign."

Preis shared King’s excitement, saying it "feels good that the community has accepted that I am working hard and wants me to keep doing it."

"I am ecstatic," he said. "(Columbia) is such a great community, and it’s such an honor to be able to have a voice in the issues that are out there."

VOTE April 7th

So...

What are YOU doing April 7th?

                     VOTE!!
Show us YOUR sticker! Tweet to #P2bCMNEA   

Another CPS Union Faces Difficult Negotiations

CPS custodians' union wants contract to include due process for fired, suspended workers

By ROGER MCKINNEY

Saturday, April 4, 2015 
Another union is upset with Columbia Public Schools.

A team from the teachers union, the Columbia Missouri National Education Association, has been in collective bargaining sessions with a district bargaining team. The negotiations have not gone smoothly.

Another district team, with some of the same members, has been in collective bargaining sessions with the Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 773 which is seeking to represent CPS custodians.

The fledgling local union is trying to organize workers, but union officials say the district’s strategy in negotiations is to try to bust the union before it gets off the ground. They have 53 signed union cards and potentially 170 members.

Union officials say the disagreement is on one point: The district won’t allow a grievance procedure for due process for custodians who have been fired or suspended without pay in the negotiated contract.

“We can’t come to agreement over any protections for workers,” said Regina Guevara, union field representative.

“The heart of the agreement is protection for employees,” said union attorney Paul Prendergast. “They've refused to allow employees to have that. All we’re looking for are basic due process procedures.”

Prendergast said the provision wouldn’t cost the district anything unless a custodian firing or suspension led to arbitration.

The union representatives said without some level of job protection, there is no reason to be in a union. Kevin Starr, union business manager, said it’s a union-busting tactic. He said without the provision, the custodians are second-class workers.

“This comes down to class warfare,” Starr said. “This comes down to the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’ ”

Linda Quinley, CPS chief financial officer and spokeswoman for the district’s negotiating team, said the district can’t agree to the grievance procedure for employees who are fired or suspended without pay, because that would conflict with district policy that excludes staff filing a grievance when fired or suspended.

Starr said that’s not an adequate explanation, because the policy includes language that allows for a collective bargaining agreement with a separate grievance procedure that applies only to members of the bargaining unit.

Quinley said the language is the reason the district won’t include the wording in a collective bargaining agreement that would override board policy.

“We believe the board policies are in place for all employees to create equity for all employees and to assure that the board of education retains the management rights they need,” Quinley said.

The laborers’ union and the school district have their next scheduled collective bargaining session on Wednesday.

Quinley said the district rejects the idea that custodians are second-class employees, while acknowledging that certified, tenured teachers have a different status in the district.

“We don’t regard any of our employees as second class,” Quinley said.

She said the district also disputes the claim that it’s trying to make the union look unappealing.

“We’re coming at it strictly from the standpoint of honoring our board policy,” Quinley said. “We have no intent to bust the union.”

Andrea Follett, CPS director of human resources and employment law, said employment can be ended at any time and for any legal reason by either the employee or the employer. She said her department reviews every termination to ensure compliance with laws and policies.

Guevara said the disagreement isn't related to pay.

“It is about fairness and equality and having a dependable job,” she said.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere A Darin Preis Sign!

And the sign said, "Everybody welcome, come in, 

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind

Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

Sign

Sign, sign

CMNEA, you've done us proud!  We BEGGED you to take signs and you did!  So much so, that the Darin Preis campaign has RUN OUT of signs!!  I still have about 6 and I will bring them to our April 2nd RA meeting.  After that, they are gone.

On Friday, April 10th, BRING YOUR SIGNS TO YOUR SCHOOL!  We are going to ask ALL building reps to allow signs be dropped off at their classroom.  Place the signs in the blag bags you were given (If you don't have one, a bag will be mailed to you via school mail) and leave it in your school office.  One of our delivery people will stop by ALL schools to pick up the signs on April 10th.  Please have the bags in your school office by 10:00 a.m. 

Thank you! 

Information About April 7th Election

Dear CMNEA members,

The deadline to register as a voter in Boone County/Columbia has passed.  However, if you would like to know how to find your voting location, would like information on how to vote absentee, or wonder what else will be on the ballot, we've added quick links to the website!  Just go to the right side of the screen and look at the top with the label "Information About April 7, 2015 Election."  Hope this helps!

Don't forget to contact me for a yard sign for our RECOMMENDED candidate, Darin Preis!! Darin will stop by briefly at our April 2nd members meeting (RA) which will be held at West Middle School beginning at 4:30 p.m.  He will tell about his campaign around 4:45 p.m.