Woodbridge teachers won’t renegotiate contract, union president says

by Sergio Bichao on Mar 16th | Email

After weeks of hearing the Woodbridge school board discuss possibly cutting its next budget by millions of dollars and eliminating as many as 100 to 200 employees, the teachers union president declared Monday that his unit would not renegotiate its contract.

"It's important to hear publicly . . . that we cannot and will not do that at this time," Woodbridge Township Education Association president Brian Geoffroy said during the board's public workshop, acknowledging a board member's suggestion that the union re-open their contract.

For the past three months, the school board has held three budget workshops to discuss several best-case and worst-case scenarios in anticipation of likely cuts in state aid, which will be announced by Thursday.

On Friday, the board will hold a regular meeting at 7 p.m at Avenel Middle School to adopt a preliminary budget based on the figures released by Trenton.

On Monday, officials presented a $5.4 million list of cuts to teachers, aides and busing as well as privatizing the cafeteria workers if state funding were to remain flat -- unlikely, considering Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that aid to schools would be cut by as much as 5 percent.

The district had also planned for a state aid cut of 10 percent, requiring an additional $2.5 million in cuts to elementary, middle school and freshmen sports and the Gifted and Talented arts program.

Look at both lists here and here.

Geoffroy, whose unit represents much of the faculty and staff, said district officials should not look to reducing his members' paychecks and benefits, a cost that rises annually.

"Solving the budget crises will not come from renegotiating the terms and conditions of our members," Geoffroy said. "Although that may seem disappointing for some people, they should keep in mind that last year we were in a budget crisis -- déjà vu. It's important to remember that during that time we settled a fair contract, a contract which both sides felt was modest but due to the circumstances was fair."

The contract, ratified in October, includes 1.25 percent raise the first year, a 2.75 percent raise the second year, and a 3 percent raise the third year. In the previous agreement, the unit had received 3 to 3.5 percent increases to their salary scales. Cafeteria workers agreed to about $400,000 in wage and benefits concessions in the current agreement.

Geoffroy said it would be unwise to outsource the district's food services to a private company, especially after workers, most of whom live in Woodbridge, have been working this year to reduce their operation's debt.

"State revenue is down because people are out of work, so in turn what are we going to do since we're getting less revenue? We're going to put more people out of work," Geoffroy said.