The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 is still negotiating with two of its five employee unions whose four-year contracts expired at the beginning of the current school year.
The two are the District 65 Educational Secretarial and Clerical Association (DESC), with about 104 members, and the Evanston Association of Child Care Professionals (EACCP), with about 51 members.
Two union contracts that expired at the beginning of this school year have already been settled.
The largest of these is the District 65 Educators’ Council (DEC), which represents about 700 of the district’s teachers. The other is the Evanston Custodial and Maintenance Association (ECMA) that represents about 55 members of the janitorial staff.
A tentative agreement has been reached with a third union, the Evanston Teacher Assistants Association (ETAA), which is awaiting final approval. ETAA represents about 149 members, according to the district.
A federal mediator is currently working with the D65 and DESC bargaining teams to resolve outstanding issues, a district spokesperson, Melissa Messinger, told Evanston Now.
“We absolutely want to reach a fair agreement with both DESC and EACCP as quickly as possible,” she said. “The Board and Administration greatly respects the work of all of our support staff members and recognizes the important role they play in both our students’ education and in the smooth operation of our school district,” she added.
Board members have received regular updates and have provided input during executive sessions, Messinger said, but have not historically been at the bargaining table with the smaller unions.
Ya think the unions will go on strike?
D65 gave the Teacher’s Union a pay raise in December after the union threatened to strike. Then D65 turned around and said the district is broke, begging voters to give them another $116 million.
Now the district is negotiating with two more unions? Anyone really think district admins will bargain hard on behalf of property owners? Ya think these unions would go on strike if they don’t what they want?
Is anyone in Evanston outraged by these turn of events?
District 65 support staff
I want my home prices to stay high and my community to support our great Schools. This includes fair wages for all city, and school workers. This is what makes Evanston the great community I love. However, I have learned that our school support staff are paid so low that most of them have there children on free lunch programs. Shame on you District 65 board. Give them all a living wage.
If you believe raising wages
If you believe raising wages increases home prices, then raising wages also increases rent. All of the raise then goes to higher rent.
In the real world, the real minimum wage is zero, and a lot of people in Seattle are finding that out.