Good Evening,
Here is a quick update from our bargaining meeting that was held on February 22.
I want to first give a big “Thank You!” to the members who showed up for our meeting. In addition to our core bargaining team which includes Patty MacRae and Sara Moccio, we were joined for the first time by Peggy O’Connell, Laura Roche, Trisha Etter, Kathy Quigley, Bonnie Maclay and Zoraida Jordan who served as observers. Zoraida asked if the School Committee had evaluated the impact of their proposal on her potential lifetime earnings – and those of others in a similar position – driving the point home that while we are open to consider their proposals, we won’t agree to anything that negatively impacts any of our members over the course of the remaining years in their career.
We are getting closer. The SC is doing some research on their end to demonstrate to us that their proposal is something we can present to you in good conscience. We are also doing the math on our end to ensure everything will work to our benefit.
I also want to give a HUGE shout out to the ESP CAT team meeting who took a break from their planning meeting tonight to send the SC emails in support of our demand for a fair Cost of Living wage increase while we were in the bargaining room! The ESPs return to the table to continue their fight for a living wage on Wednesday – I encourage you all to repay the favor and show your solidarity with them to the School Committee (schoolcommittee@haverhill-ps.org).
Our next bargaining session is on Monday, March 8 at 4:00, and I invite all of you to attend. Please let me know by Thursday, March 4 if you can join us so that I can submit the list to the district. It makes a huge difference having a couple members present, just imagine how powerful it would be to have the entire unit present for this meeting!. When you RSVP please send me your cell number so we can help navigate between the meeting sites.
We have avatars to support the Clerical and ESP units that you can use as your profile picture for your work and personal email and social media accounts. Those can be downloaded to your device here: http://www.icontact-archive.com/archive?c=156438&f=1780&s=1886&m=1040713&t=1b6137c44feb927634c17f89ae509466baaea6868e7cdb5d04aecdc1149bd368
New apparel is also available to show your solidarity in style! Contact Suzette DiTonno (ditonnosuzette@gmail.com) and order by the end of the month for March delivery if you are interested. To see what’s available visit https://haverhill.massteacher.org/apparel