Youngstown City School District ‘surprised’ to hear of Youngstown teachers strike notice
Youngstown City School District officials are expressing surprise after hearing of the Youngstown Education Association’s strike date announcement of Aug. 23 on Tuesday.
“The school district was surprised to receive a notice of intent to strike from the union. This is because the union also requested that the fact-finding mediation process begin last week; then seemed to change their mind,” Youngstown City School District Communications and Public Relations Director Stacy Quiñones said in a statement Wednesday. adding that the district is assessing its options.
“As Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor informed the union bargaining team on the last day they met, we are willing at any time to return to the table with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service mediator, and we’ve offered to do so numerous times.”
Quiñones emailed out an additional statement later Wednesday night.
Youngstown City School District statement from Wednesday night
“The Youngstown City School District continues to have an open door for dialogue with our teacher’s union negotiating team. Along these lines, during the last day of scheduled mediation with the Federal Mediation Service, Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor offered additional dates to continue the negotiation process. Unfortunately, the union negotiating team did not take Mr. Batchelor up on his offer to continue the negotiations with the help of the Federal mediator. Instead, the union declared an impasse. Mr. Batchelor states, “My team was not the team who left the table; the District is willing to meet with the Union at any place or anytime to continue discussions for a new contract.”
Mr. Batchelor also notes that the school district offered the Union an across-the-board 2% raise and contrasted that with the zero to 1.5% raises that other school district non-union employees are set to receive. Mr. Batchelor continued, “We were able to agree with the Union at the table on continuing our strong health insurance package, which has an employee premium share below Northeast Ohio and statewide averages. We were able to reach an agreement on several other provisions that helped modernize some of the school district administrative practices.”
Mr. Batchelor noted the open issues when he stated, “At this point, reaching the 5.5% raise for next year that the union wants is a big gap, but it’s one that my team is willing to continue to discuss. Besides our already agreed articles and also meeting our goal of looking to continue the amount of student contact time between our teachers and our scholars, we are fine with continuing the current contract language for another year unchanged, as much of that contract language has been in place now for over a decade”.
The District is aware of the strike notice that was recently filed by the teacher’s union. In response, the District believes that notice is not yet timely and that there is a statutory process in place called fact finding that first needs to be used by the parties. In the fact-finding process, the final offers of both the union and the management team are presented to a third-party neutral appointed by the State Labor Board, who would make a non-binding recommendation for both parties to consider and vote upon.
Mr. Batchelor notes, “The fact-finding process is in effect statewide and is part of the normal process that is often followed. The union initially made a request for fact-finding last week and then seemed to change its mind and withdraw the fact-finding request last Friday. Then they followed that withdrawal up with a notice to strike. We think fact-finding is where we need to be to solve these issues.”
Mr. Batchelor indicated that the District does believe fact-finding is what’s best for the scholars and the community to see if a third party can help bridge some of the gaps. The District is evaluating its options regarding the fact-finding process and the union’s strike notice.
Mr. Batchelor said, “Our goal is to provide the best possible education for our scholars and to do that from day one as currently scheduled. I hope dialogue and negotiations can continue without a strike, and I hope the fact-finding process can give both parties a fresh look at the wage gap between them. We are good with keeping the contract intact.”
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This story was originally published August 9, 2023 at 4:42 PM.