Labor
Dear Tiverton School Committee members: It so happened that, the Friday before you’ll decide whether to approve the arbitrated teacher contract, my boss called me on the construction site to tell me that, after I take my five paid days of annual vacation this week, he and I will have to sit down and agree…
Tiverton Citizens for Change is moving forward from its electoral successes: The School Committee should reject a tentative two-year teachers’ contract at its meeting Tuesday in light of possible unanticipated cuts in state aid to local schools during the current fiscal year, according to the anti-tax group Tiverton Citizens for Change. The committee and the…
Thomas Wigand, a labor lawyer and well-known personage on the Rhode Island right, describes for the Providence Business News just what the Employee Free Choice Act would mean: This new legislation is called the “Employee Free Choice Act.” Some have opined that the name is “Orwellian,” for EFCA quashes “free choice” by effectively eliminating secret…
So here’s what’s going on in other towns while the Tiverton teachers demand retroactive pay for time spent working to rule: As state leaders wrestle with a second-straight year of mid-term budget cuts, mayors and managers across Rhode Island are looking at everything from later bill payment schedules to union concessions to offset expected losses…
There’s creeping desperation in West Warwick: The Town Council and School Committee agreed to open the lines of communication as part of a settlement of the Caruolo lawsuit the schools filed against the town in April, which seeks a $1.1-million addition to its $49.4-million budget. … … the first step, Thomas said, is addressing the…
East Providence School Committee member Anthony Carcieri makes an interesting observation to the Providence Journal: Along with the skirmishes over ground rules, the negotiators also have disclosed their ultimate goal. The committee wants $3 million in annual concessions from the teachers, Carcieri says, adding that they aren’t bluffing or backing down. “The NEA has experienced…
Well this would clearly not be acceptable: In the first year of the contract, retroactive to the last school year, [Tiverton] teachers with at least 10 years’ experience would receive pay increases of 2.75 percent. The same group would get another 2.5 percent in the current year, but hikes in health insurance costs also would…
Some last-minute pre-election teacher contract controversy has arisen for Tiverton voters’ edification: Superintendent William Rearick and School Committee Chairwoman Denise deMedeiros thought they were close to approving a contract for the teachers this week, saying this is the closest they have been in more than 16 months of negotiating, but teachers union President Amy Mullen…
To the members of the six Providence municipal unions who, in the words of Philip Marcelo of the Projo, “[oppose] the city’s decision to change its health care benefits manager”, let me one more time pitch the most obvious solution to your dilemma…Your health insurance should be separated from any direct employer involvement; David Cicilline…
The shadow that unions cast over our education system never ceases to sting: [East Providence’s] current contract with its teachers expires on Friday, and talks are at a deadlock. The sides can’t agree on ground rules and the sticking point is the School Committee’s demand that the bargaining be done in public. “The union representatives…
