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Islip School District Employees Nearly Unanimously Ratify 5 Year Pact
After twenty months of bargaining, with the resilience of UPSEU’s Islip Clerical members, UPSEU and its negotiating team delivered an excellent agreement that was enthusiastically ratified by its membership.
“We came to the bargaining table to achieve one goal,” stated UPSEU President Kevin E. Boyle, Jr., “to significantly increase our members’ salaries, bringing them to the median in Suffolk County.”
To reach its objective, the Board of Education and the superintendent needed to recognize the recruitment and retention problems, the historically low salaries were causing.
Dating back to the 1980’s and early 1990’s district settlements had been for total money, meaning that increments came off the top of the schedule. When UPSEU took over from CSEA in the mid 1990’s, although we successfully changed the way settlements were calculated, the salaries were so far below everyone in Suffolk, that progress in escalating the salaries was difficult.
These negotiations were viewed by UPSEU and the unit, as one where something had to give. Armed with the data to support our position, and after losing some great employees, the superintendent and board recognized something had to be done. While UPSEU and the district differed on the significance of the problem, both agreed there was as problem.
Clerical negotiations were ongoing at the same time as the custodial and operations unit who had a similar wage problem, so UPSEU was fighting the battle on two fronts. This ultimately proved to be helpful as we were able to make the case for significant adjustments each time we met for each unit. UPSEU and its team understood that the only way the district would provide the necessary funding was for them to be convinced that something needed to be done.
In the end they did. As a result, in addition to annual wages over a five year period, significant annual adjustments were achieved, that together with additional off step annual wage adjustments will bring the unit, during the term of the contract, to median in Suffolk County. Gains in benefit fund contributions and increased sick accruals at retirement were also achieved amongst other gains.
We achieved our primary objective and that was to deliver significant adjustments to the salary schedule and to off step employees now and into the future,” stated UPSEU President Kevin E. Boyle, Jr. who headed up both negotiations.
Carol Jensen, UPSEU’s Unit President summed up the negotiations stating, “President Boyle guided us throughout the process and hammered home to the district’s team, the need to address the wage problem. His leadership, the support of our membership and the negotiating team’s unwavering commitment to delivering for its members, made the difference.”
Special thanks to the negotiating team of Carol Jensen, Geraldine Burnell, Laura Lucas, Yolanda Alvarez and Robin Bauer for their outstanding commitment to bringing home an excellent contract, and to all UPSEU Islip members for their support and commitment to waiting as long as it had to take, to make it happen.
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