Last week I described an assertion by a local teacher union, the South Butler Education Association, that seniority-based pay raises shouldn’t be included when computing the percentage size of pay increases. The argument didn’t impress me, but at least I could follow it and understand some of the feelings behind it.
I am, however, baffled by complaints of the Pennsylvania State Education Association negotiator assisting the South Butler union, as reported in an article in the Valley News Dispatch.
The article explains that the South Butler SD school board posted on its website the board’s offer to an arbitration panel but did not post the union counter-proposal. The article continues as follows.
[The PSEA UniServe representative, Christine] Cortazzo said on Wednesday that more information on the union’s offer was provided prior to the hearing and should be disseminated by the district. “The school district is required to provide both (sides’ offers) and they are refusing,” Cortazzo said. “I don’t know why they’re making the process more difficult. I think it’s silly.”
However, Cortazzo declined to provide the union’s offer. She said Gifford [the lead arbitrator] has asked both sides not to release details to the media, and she was honoring his request. She accused district officials of not doing so.
Ms. Cartazzo must have trying to say that she doesn’t think the district should have posted anything at all but that, if either offer is posted, both should be posted. The notion that a school district “is required” to publish anything at all is news to me (and apparently to the arbitrator, who would not have asked anyone to break the law). But I’m happy to agree with Ms. Cortazzo that it’s a good thing to communicate both sides’ positions fully — if that’s in fact what she meant.
The reporter for the Valley News Dispatch has done a conscientious job of trying to sort all this out. For example, she puts her finger on a small inconsistency in the district proposal. The board says that teachers would earn an additional $8,875 over the course of the five-year contract. The reporter notes that the district is not offering retroactive raises, so the actual total raise for teachers would be somewhat lower. No reporter can, however, do that kind of close analysis on a union proposal she has not been allowed to see. This is one of the costs of one-sided transparency — another reason that full disclosure of both side’s positions would be in the public interest.
