HEBRON—Following efforts to educate and mobilize the community about their issues, the non-certified workforce in RHAM Middle and High Schools spoke out at Monday's Regional School District #8 Board of Education meeting. They were joined by parents, teachers, and other school faculty who urged the board to accept a tentative agreement on a successor contract with the employees they rejected last month in order to avoid costly arbitration hearings to settle the dispute.

On September 21, by a vote of six to four, officials rejected a tentative agreement on a successor contract for the assistant bookkeeper, maintenance workers, office staff, custodians, and paraprofessionals in the district's two schools. Since then, the workers have been reaching out to residents in Andover, Hebron and Marlborough to demand elected officials support a fair contract and make better choices for the use of education resources.

"Taxpayers have every reason to be angry over the breakdown in negotiations between our Union and the RHAM Board of Education" Jackie Skillings, a paraprofessional who works at the high school, said during public comment. She addressed the tentative agreement that members of the CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 chapter representing the schools' non-certified workers ratified the afternoon before the school board rejected it. "After allowing the Union to vote, the Board rescinded their offer. This is not bargaining in good faith" Skillings, a member of the Union's negotiating committee, added.

The previous contract for the non-certified workers expired in July of 2008, and after negotiations broke down in November, the dispute went to mediation. Skillings and her colleagues worked to reach an agreement that delivered cost savings and preserved vital education services, and ultimately accepted the school board's economic proposals, which mirrored a previous arbitration decision.

"I have worked for the district for almost twenty years, and our contract pays the bare minimum to some of the hardest working and most dedicated people I know" Maureen Brancato, the assistant bookkeeper at the schools, told the board. "The cost of arbitration, which the taxpayers will ultimately pay for, would certainly have taken care of salary increases that might have been awarded" Brancato added.

CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 represents 25,000 active and retired public sector workers serving in state and municipal agencies, as well as local school districts across Connecticut. Visit www.seiu2001.org online for more information about how its members are working to deliver quality services to students in our state's K-12 public education settings.