East Side Teachers Association/CTA/NEA 888 So. Capitol Ave San Jose, Ca 95127 November 21, 2005

Don McKell, President Ralph Giannini, Vice President Jane Voss, Secretary Bernadette Salgarino, Treasurer

EstaPres@pacbell.net fax: (408) 272-7569 voice: (408) 272-0601 website: www.EastSideTA.org

California voters got the message, and soundly defeated not only the three initiatives that had galvanized CTA to spring to action, but all eight of the initiatives appearing on the ballot of the governor’s special election on Nov 8. In retrospect, Schwarzenegger is left with a legacy of having spent the better part of $80,000,000 in public money to find out that he had nowhere near the support for his "reforms" as he had claimed. As a declared candidate for reelection as governor, one wonders how this costly blunder will influence his political future.

Move over Jesse Ventura, here comes another washed up action hero to join you in obscurity.

Newspaper reports claim that as much as $300m was spent by all sides in the campaigns to influence voters. If so, then each vote cast cost the better part of $50, making this the costliest election ever in the history of the known universe.

CTA’s share of the $300m was around $52m. In addition to the TV and radio spots (aren’t you glad they’re over?) we did phone banking and precinct walking right up through election day. Hundreds of ordinary members in the eight CTA chapters comprising the Mt. Hamilton UniServ responded to the call to get involved. All of us owe each of them a huge debt of gratitude.

Want to celebrate? The eight chapters of the Mt. Ham Council will hold a Victory Party on Friday, Dec 2, from around 3:00 p.m. until… we’re done. We’ll have food and drink and entertainment and good fellowship. Maybe even an action hero piñata. Everyone is welcome. Come and blow off a little steam with us. If you don’t know where the Mt. Ham CTA office is, call me or ask your building president for directions. Carpooling is recommended.

Interim Superintendent Bob Nunez has withdrawn from active participation as a member of the District’s Bargaining Team. HR Director Cathy Giammona has been designated as the district’s new chief negotiator, with management colleagues Jerry Kurr, Dan Moser, Tim McDonough, and Grettel Castro-Stanley rounding out the team. ESTA’s team continues to be headed by Don Dawson, joined by Kim Schaupp, Julie Pratico, Marisa Vera, Theresa Flores and Rob Suhr. Former ESTA member Launa Carlson continues to consult.

It is not unusual for the superintendent to withdraw from active participation in bargaining, just as it is typical that ESTA’s President is also not a member of our bargaining team. There are occasional times that negotiations logjams can be broken by such arrangements.

Amid a couple dozen ESTA members in their black T-shirts, the following statement was read by me to the East Side board at its meeting on November 10.

ESTA members at all sites voted on November 16 in an election for a new ESTA Treasurer and also for local Site Officers and Assembly Representatives. A complete summary of the votes cast in each contest is being distributed. As is frequently the case, many of the positions subject to election were uncontested, and voters had a "soviet style" confirmation rather than a choice of candidates. Even worse, faculties at Overfelt, James Lick, and Yerba Buena were not able to muster a single candidate for election to ESTA Assembly positions, thus saddling their beleaguered Officers as the only people to represent their points of view. If they have any.

I must say that I find this continued lack of participation in our representative form of governance to be pretty disgusting. But I’ll get over it. I just wonder what the faculties at WO, JL, and YB are going to do when Eleanor Aguirre, Mike Gatenby, or Blanca Espinosa decide that it’s someone else’s turn to carry the load.

As of January 1, 2006, the ESTA officer structure at school sites will look like this. (Names in boldface are new to their listed office. Assembly Rep names in italics are recently reelected incumbents)

For many years, the District has carried a category of employee known as "management, non-administrative", which included a variety of Coordinators, Subject Area Coordinators (SACs), and a few other job types. In the wake of the reassignment of many Coordinators into classroom duties last year, ESTA formally asserted that since teaching classes is our work, people doing it should be members of our bargaining unit. The District agreed, and formal bargaining has now resulted in a settlement establishing that, from this point, all certificated employees who do not need an administrative credential to perform their jobs will be members of our bargaining unit. In a closed session meeting of the school board last week, the board approved the changes.

A small number of ESTA members have already been working an extra ten days each year, and have been paid per diem for doing so. These include head counselors, nurses, and activities directors. To assure them of getting STRS credit for the extra contract income, ESTA and the District have also agreed to the creation of a new 192-day certificated salary schedule which will be included along side the traditional 182-day schedule from which most of us are paid.

SACs have been paid for working a 192-day year for a long time. However, as a part of management, SACs did not receive the same COLA raise last year as ESTA members did. (Did you know that the only district employees to get a COLA raise last year were ESTA members? Management and classified did not.) The new 192-day salary schedule will be based upon our existing salary schedule, with the amount in each cell increased by a factor of 192/182 (about 5.5%).

All district employees categorized as "Coordinators" have been receiving a district stipend, and will continue to receive that stipend as ESTA members.

Unfortunately, negotiations are not progressing well. As I have reported previously, some noteworthy bargaining has taken place in which a variety of non-money issues have been settled. But after months of waiting, at the most recent official meeting of the bargaining teams, the district finally put forward a three-way financial proposal that avoids any commitment on the district’s part to come up with any sort of COLA raise this year. In its entirety, that proposal read:

As one might imagine, our bargaining team did not jump to agree to any to these proposals. We know that the district has never had revenues as large as those it has this year, up a minimum of $10m from just last year. We know we are busting our butts with jammed classrooms and we’re getting tired of seeing what appears to be a steady increase in DO administrative personnel at our expense. We know the district got a 5.58% COLA this year, and will get a similar one next year. We can read the newspaper reports that record-breaking state revenues are expected, and we also know that Prop 98 has been preserved by the voters. We have also been informed that the District negotiations with the classified unit (CSEA) have been declared to have reached Impasse.

An outside observer might conclude that, unless some pretty major movement is made in our contract talks soon, we’ll soon be joining our CSEA brothers and sisters in that same Neverland of bargaining impasse.

I question how much longer ESTA members will be patient. I also question how much longer we will collectively continue to expend the massive amounts of extra energy that we’ve shown all year.

The next meeting of the East Side board is on the evening of December 8. Perhaps a few of us ought to show up to ask the board to consider what its inactivity may end up costing.