Teachers in the Mount Diablo Unified School District could get a 10.5% salary increase over the next three years after a tentative agreement was reached in the early morning hours following a drawn-out negotiation process.
The district and union agreed to terms at 1 a.m. Saturday. Earlier in the week, 92% of members of the Mount Diablo Education Association voted to authorize a strike by the end of the month if the district didn’t up its offer. It would have been the first strike since 1977.
The teachers wanted a 12.5% raise over the next three school years and the district had offered 7.5% over that same period with a 3% bonus in the first year.
A strike would have affected about 29,000 students who attend district schools in Concord, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Martinez, Clayton, Pittsburg and Lafayette, as well as the Pacheco, Bay Point and Clyde communities.
The tentative agreement will not be official until members of Mount Diablo Education Association ratify it and the school board approves it.
Union president Anita Johnson previously said the district’s initial offer wouldn’t have been enough to meet rising costs.
But Superintendent Adam Clark had insisted there wasn’t enough room in the budget for anything more than a 7.5% raise, noting that about 1,000 students had left the district during the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview this week, he accused the union of misstating the district’s finances and said its no-confidence vote in Chief Business Officer Lisa Marie Gonzalez was a political tactic.
The two sides declared an impasse when negotiations stalled in December and summoned an independent state mediator to help settle the dispute.
The state’s Public Employment Relations Board recently assigned a fact-finding panel to issue a nonbinding recommendation to both sides on how to proceed.
In a joint release, the two sides said a 10.5% raise is the best agreement possible for “our students, our educators, our community our schools, and our district.”
“Both the MDEA and MDUSD Bargaining Teams sincerely appreciate all of the passion and time that so many of you have put into supporting these negotiations, and ensuring that a meaningful settlement that supports students and values the work of educators could be reached.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com