Quincy Teachers finally score new contract?

– News about Quincy Massachusetts from Quincy Quarry News with commentary added

Teachers picketing for a reasonable new contract
A Quincy Quarry News file photo

In late breaking good news in Quincy for a change on Friday afternoon was the release of a joint statement “(t)he Quincy School Committee and the Quincy Education Association are pleased to announce the successful negotiation of a successor collective bargaining agreement for the period of September 1, 2022 through August. 31, 2025.”

Also announced: “(b)oth parties agree that this settlement represents a positive step forward for the district and our educational staff who work hard in the schools every day supporting students and families. This new contract contains a number of significant improvements for Quincy educators. We are grateful for the work of both parties in reaching this contract and look forward to a continued collaborative relationship.”

In other words, ostensible claptrap purporting kumbaya after nine months and many collective bargaining sessions that went nowhere.

Even more teachers picketing for a new contract
A Quincy Quarry News file photo

After all, terms of the tentative agreement were not immediately made available to score who was the bigger winner in this long-ongoing labor dispute that dates back to at least last June as well as included upwards of twenty unsuccessful bargaining sessions.

Even so, given the late Friday announcement, Quincy Quarry News can thus only properly note that the timing off the announcement does provide the opportunity to work the quiet weekend news cycle should one side have blinked at the bargaining table.

Plus, care of Quincy Quarry’s sources both high but mostly low, it cannot help but suspect that it was most likely Quincy Mayor and thus also School Committee Chair Thomas P. Koch who blinked as teachers were said to be at their basta point and were thus about to vote to go the mattresses or at least hit the bricks with massive local support of local families to cover their sixes in what is a mayoral election year

“Just in case —- you might need it”
A Cassius Marcellus Coolidge illustration

Additionally, the tentative agreement is subject to ratification by local teacher union members and thus providing an ace in the hole for teachers if needed.

In any event, the teachers asks were ultimately both modest as well as only reasonable, all things duly considered.

Key to teachers’ reasonableness is that they have long not had a problem with Mayor and thus also Chair of the School Committee Thomas P, Koch’s three percent Cost of Living Adjustment (“COLA”) over three years offer even though soaring inflation over the past year has already all but laid waste to the mayor’s COLA offer and which all other city employees unions have already agreed to via their new contracts.

At the same time, the teachers did not make much of how Mayor Koch provided a roughly 7.5% pay pop bonus this fiscal year provided to local police officers hired over the past dozen years who have a comparable level of college degrees required of teachers.

Rather, teachers have sought the first consequential tweaks to their benefits and work schedules in at least a decade..

For example, the overwhelming female teachers union has consistently sought maternity or otherwise adding children to their respective households leave benefits somewhere between what various other city workers enjoy and what other school districts typically provide so as to be able better retain teachers in what has long been a highly competitive market for school districts to hire and then retain teachers.

Be sure to note that even with such an improvement in parental leave, the teachers’ ask is still be less than what most working in the private sector enjoy as public employees are exempt the more generous Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) even if various other government employers do offer better parental leave that what has been accorded to local teachers.

Also note that currently the Quincy Police Department has long seen its union officers donate their sick days to help out one of its relatively few female officers who has a child that been facing a very trying as well as well-publicized and more importantly so far successful battle with cancer, something that is apparently not readily allowed for teachers to do to so as help out one of their colleagues facing similar travail.

Teachers were also seeking more time during their work days designated for class preparation and professional development. 

Ever increasing class sizes as well as both teacher and student development expectations have increased teachers’ workloads and thus one can only properly appreciate teachers’ desire to see these efforts duly compensated, especially as they are the most well-educated as well as well-credentialed group of professionals employed by the City of Quincy.

Additionally as well as accordingly, teachers thus rejected Mayor Koch’s conversely pressing for roughly a day’s work on professional improvement efforts per school year without seeing compensation for doing so.

Teachers also sought an ultimately modest boost in longevity pay for their taking on the teaching Quincy public school students. 

Truer words have never been spoken in the field of education
A meme of a famous Mark Twain quote

Conversely, Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch long held fast to all but entirely rejecting the teachers’ union’s ultimately modest new contract asks that would but for the most part merely but keep them on par with what teachers in Weymouth are paid, if not also has demonized local teachers when a better case could be readily made that he has been grinding teachers.

Koch’s truculent parsimony only becomes even more indefensible given that rookie Governor Maura Healey announced that her FY2024 budget would see Quincy receive a roughly $10 million increase in state aid to Quincy’s public school system care of primarily the recently imposed so-called Millionaires Tax income tax surcharge.

While the $10 million increase in state aid looking likely to be coming to Quincy would be at least several times more than the cost of the benefits and workday asks of the teachers’ union, one still cannot help but suspect that Mayor Koch is perhaps planning to again do something akin to what he did in FY2011.

Specifically, a dozen years ago Mayor Koch cut the amount of local funding appropriated to the local public schools by roughly $3.8 million given the City of Quincy’s receipt off  $4.8 million in federal emergency ARRA funding provided so as to help prop up local public schools operations in the wake of the Crash of 2009 and so Koch de facto shifted the near four large to cover other city spending. 

Further, the mayor had concurrently promised to return whatever was left over from a $2.2 million special onetime only severance budget line item expense if teachers agreed to delay receipt of a union contract scheduled 4% pay increase in 2010.  The teachers so agreed to the pay freeze but the mayor then reneged on returning to the school budget the roughly million dollars not expended on severance payments given that fewer teachers had to be laid off given their agreeing to postpone their contractually scheduled pay raise.

The end result of this broken promise accounting legerdemain grift provided the mayor with an estimated million dollars to help him duck laying off any non school department employees even if a few such people had to be moved to other jobs whereas the school department had to layoff roughly forty employees as well as it was likely these forty layoffs were above and beyond those who left their employment by the city for the usual sorts of attrition such as family demands, retirement, death, moving out of the area, or moving on to a new job.

Had the million dollars been returned the school department budget as promised it the teacher postponed their scheduled raise, roughly a dozen teachers would not have had to be fired.

In fact, the end result of both of these sleazy moves by the mayor instead allowed him to provide an increase to all non-school spending by roughly twice that of what was provided to local public schools per a properly weighted percentage basis.

In short, the history of koch and mirrors by Mayor Koch, along with his annual school budgets averaging increases less than the rate of inflation while student enrollment has increased while he has concurrently increased all other city spending by close to three times the rate of inflation per a duly weighted basis have surely helped fuel teachers’ reported 98% vote of no confidence of Mayor Koch.

Accordingly, Quincy Quarry’s ever-growing legions of loyal readers can count on the Quarry to endeavor to score particulars on the still tentative new teachers union contract and so score who scored the better of the other side of the negotiating table as well as report back on same as might be appropriate.

In the meanwhile, however, it would appear that Mayor Koch looks to have blinked.  If so, the Quarry can only assume payback later for Quincy as the mayor is arguably Quincy’s sorest as well as most passive aggressive loser.

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