Strike vote looms as Fresno Unified and teachers union fail to reach an agreement
The Fresno Teachers Association remains at odds with the district over a new contract, with the union’s strike vote scheduled for Wednesday.
The two sides are far apart on a new teachers’ salary scale, class size reduction and employee healthcare benefits, said Manuel Bonilla, the FTA’s president.
As of Friday, Bonilla said the salary that the district proposed is 9% below the expected inflation rate over the four-year period between 2022 to 2026, the time period the union wants a new contract to cover.
“What the district has offered in those areas, our teachers are saying that’s not a way that’s going to improve our school district,” Bonilla said. “Right now, the status quo isn’t working, and we need something dramatically different.”
If there’s a strike, over 72,000 students in what is the third largest district in the state could be without teachers. Substitute teachers could step in for a $500 per day rate, but they’d likely have to cross picket lines.
The last – and only – time Fresno teachers went on strike was in 1978 for almost two weeks, Ed Source reports. Then, with a higher rate also offered for substitute teachers, the district couldn’t cover all classes and had to place administrators as teachers in classrooms and combine classes.
Fresno Unified District Superintendent Bob Nelson said its “Package Proposal 2” that it offered the union goes “well above and beyond” addressing educators’ requests for help and support.
Nelson said the proposal includes:
A 19% salary increase, which includes the current ongoing 14% increase plus a 5% one-time payment increase
An average teacher salary of $103,000 per year, and contractual language that can increase salary if the projected cost of living statewide increases
A “bridge to Medicare,” instead of lifetime healthcare benefits, “which meets basically the exact same goal”
Reducing class size overage limits for each of the next few years. If a teacher has a class past those limits, they’d receive an extra stipend for managing a larger class size.
At age 57-and-a-half, if a teacher has been with Fresno Unified for 20 years, Nelson said they’d then be offered “the same active employee plan, at the same active employee premium,” for them and their spouse. Once they reach Medicare-qualifying age, then they’d have access to the district’s Medicare Advantage Plan, which is a second coverage to Medicare with additional benefits.
“Effectually, what that means with this agreement,” Nelson said, “if you work for us for 20 years and you retire, you will never go without medical coverage.”
However, Bonilla said the union doesn’t see this proposal as an offer that meets educators’ in-classroom and salary needs.
Bonilla advises against using a district-wide average salary because it’s not the education industry’s standard way to measure teacher compensation.
“Salary is usually measured by the strength of the salary schedule, and when you look at ours, we are the lowest paid starting salary and the lowest paid maximum salary in the Valley,” he said. “We want our teachers to be able to afford to live in the city in which they work.”
The California Teachers Association, the statewide educators union, confirmed to The Bee that Fresno Unified has the lowest starting and maximum salaries compared to eight surrounding school districts. According to their research, Fresno Unified’s teachers’ salary schedule ranges from $56,013 to $102,584.
Bonilla said Package Proposal 2 isn’t an offer from the district, but a result of lots of back-and-forth negotiations over time, and issues remain to be agreed upon.
“There’s a huge divide on the major issues that both our community and teachers feel are important to address,” he said, “like making sure that we lower our class sizes, improve and lower our special education caseload and workloads, and keeping up with inflation.”
The FTA vowed to strike if a deal wasn’t reached with the district in May. Then, over a thousand teachers union members agreed to give Fresno Unified a Sept. 29 deadline to reach a new contract deal.
As of Friday, both the district and union said they’d keep negotiating before Wednesday. If the FTA’s vote on Oct. 18 results in the union deciding to strike, thousands of classrooms and students’ lesson plans will be interrupted.
This story was originally published October 16, 2023 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Strike vote looms as Fresno Unified and teachers union fail to reach an agreement."