School District support staff union ‘very pleased’ with agreement

By Paul Takahashi

Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011 | 6:22 p.m.

The Clark County School District is one step closer to reaching a contract agreement with its support staff union.

The Education Support Employees Association and the School District reached a tentative agreement Tuesday after four months of negotiations. The three-year contract will go before the union for ratification on Dec. 3 starting at 5 p.m. at the Chaparral High School theater.

The details of the contract have not been released, pending final approval of the contract expected at the next School Board meeting on Nov. 29, according to School District spokeswoman Amanda Fulkerson.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” she said. “It puts our students first and works for our employees.”

ESEA President John Carr said he was “very pleased” with the outcome of the contentious negotiations, which brought out scores of union members to recent School Board meetings to protest the proposed concessions and talks of outsourcing union positions.

“I think this is a win-win for the district and support staff,” Carr said. “This is the best contract I’ve ever seen in my 18 years here.”

The union sat down with the School District’s bargaining team nine times. After the fourth meeting, the union could have declared an impasse, which would have brought about an arbitration process.

“We chose not to do that because we wanted to show we were willing to go above and beyond to get the contract that was good for the district and support staff,” Carr said.

The union, which has about 6,000 members out of the 11,265 support staff employees, did not make any major concessions, such as taking furlough days, Carr said. Further, the contract allows for more security for support staff employees by protecting their positions from being outsourced through the contract period, ending June 30, 2014, Carr added.

“We gave no concessions,” Carr said. “That’s groundbreaking, especially considering the recession times we’re in. We’re finally getting the respect and recognition from the district we deserve.”

The School District’s teachers union — the Clark County Education Association — is going through the arbitration process after declaring an impasse in August. The School District is seeking $37 million in concessions from teachers to balance its budget.