Members of the Toledo Federation of Teachers announced Tuesday they will work to the rule of their contract with Toledo Public Schools and do no additional work beyond their contractual duties as a sign that they’re unhappy with contract negotiations with the district.
TFT president Kevin Dalton made the announcement at Tuesday’s Toledo Board of Education meeting. He said union members are “disappointed and dissatisfied” with what he said were unfulfilled promises by the board to restore compensation to levels before years of wage and benefit cuts.
“Despite that, we continue to provide services for students, we continue to go above and beyond like we always have. However, a change is coming,” he said.
Mr. Dalton said the board of education has not upheld previous commitments to restore concessions made in previous contracts. He said several board presidents, including current president Bob Vasquez, made commitments to use levy money to restore transportation for the district, as well as provide competitive salaries and other recruitment and retention efforts for TFT members.
Without competitive salaries, he said, teachers will leave to neighboring districts with better compensation.
The meeting was at full capacity, and many attending wore TFT T-shirts. Another sizable crowd stood in the hallway. Mr. Dalton said workload for TFT members has “increased exponentially” during the period in which teachers made concessions, as teachers have managed the burden of added student testing and teacher evaluations. He said there has been disparate treatment between members of the administration and those in the union.
Mr. Dalton left the meeting shortly after concluding his remarks, as did nearly all of those in the audience. Board members invited Mr. Dalton to stay for the rest of the meeting, but he declined. Board Member Chris Varwig addressed the matter after he left.
She recalled a conference years ago and speakers who discussed how to have transparent negotiations where “union members felt part of the process and really in the know.”
“Mr. Dalton, though he is not here and chose to leave, I am sure he remembers that discussion we had at that conference,” she said. “I'd like to do some research and bring someone in to the district and present to the board of education what public negotiations might look like for the district.”
After the meeting, Mr. Dalton said working to the rule meant members would do no extra effort beyond the contractual duty, including volunteer work for extracurricular activities.
“The overall message and the large turnout of the crowd is that the membership is dissatisfied and we're not content with the wage package,” he said. And as important or more important, he said, was disparate treatment between the administration and the members of the Toledo Federation of Teachers.
The move is not unprecedented. In 1997, TFT deployed a similar strategy of working to the rule.
Contact Lauren Lindstrom at llindstrom@theblade.com, 419-724-6154, or on Twitter @lelindstrom.
First Published September 23, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
