Top

Dan Hardy

October 17, 2010 by · Comments Off on Dan Hardy 

Dan Hardy, Teachers in the Methacton School District are scheduled to vote next week on the resolution of a state mediator proposed contract, which averted a strike Friday.

Negotiators from both sides agreed they would recommend approval of the proposal, made during talks on Thursday night by John Cairns, who has been overseeing the negotiations.

Teachers will vote on the proposal Thursday. The school board has not set a date for a vote, but the tables are usually vote after teachers.

No details of the proposal have been released. “Members of my need to see this before I can comment on,” said President Diana Methacton Education Association Kernop Friday.

Methacton district, which includes Lower Providence and Worcester municipalities, has about 5,300 students. The teachers have been without a contract since June 30, 2009, with the wages of the main issue.

This fall, the Board of Education accepted a proposal for a different solution recommended by a fact finder appointed by the State, which heard arguments on both sides.

The board approved the recommendation determines the facts of wages, which was retroactive to 2009-10 and did not require a raise in the first year and increases an average of 4.00 percent in the second year, 4.05 in three years and 3.99 in four years.

Teachers voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposal, saying they wanted to increase an average of 5.75 percent in the first year, 5.80 in the second, and 5.21 each in the third and fourth.

There have been a strike of teachers in Pennsylvania this year, in the western part of the state. Other Western District of Pennsylvania has set a strike deadline Tuesday.

The number of strikes by teachers in the state has been declining in recent years, probably due to the bad economy.

In 2005-06 and 2006-07, there were 14 strikes by teachers. The numbers began to decline in the 2007-08 school year as the recession started to hit, the last school year, there were five.

There are 14 other districts in the suburbs of Pennsylvania are still without teacher contracts. None has a deadline to strike, although negotiations are in various disputes.

Districts are Centennial, Central Bucks, Hatboro Horsham, Neshaminy, New Hope Solebury, Norristown, Pennridge, Pennsbury, Perkiomen Valley, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Radnor, Unionville-Chadds Ford and Wissahickon. Hatboro-Horsham and Norristown have been no agreements since 2009, Neshaminy expired in 2008.

Bottom