Dreaded ‘cap’ threatens to derail contract deal
PALMDALE — Teachers in the Palmdale School District will vote on a contract today and Thursday after nearly two years of negotiations, but one hated word threatens to derail the tenuous deal: Cap.
The Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association and district negotiators announced last week they had reached a tentative agreement at the end of their final negotiating session of the school year.
If approved, the contract would maintain no-cost benefits for teachers until the 2007-08 school year, when the new contract expires. Teachers again gave up a pay raise on the exchange, as they have since 2000.
Whatever the cost of the most expensive health plan offered to teachers in 2006-07, that amount will become the maximum district contribution for the next year.
Palmdale is one of the last local school districts that does not ask its teachers to contribute to health insurance premiums. Teachers agreed five years ago to forgo cost-of-living raises in order to keep benefits at no cost.
PETA originally asked for a 4% raise and wanted the district to continue paying entirely for health care, something the district called impossible.
PSD negotiators offered to pay up to $15,500 per year towards health premiums.
Since the sides declared impasse in November, the two camps have escalated tactics in what has become a very public fight. Teachers staged protests in front of board meetings and picketed outside schools. The most common sign declared in large letters, “NO CAP.”
The proposed contract doesn’t use the word “cap,” just “maximum district contribution,” but teachers seem to be recognizing the meat of the deal.
“What else would you call a maximum contribution?” Ocotillo teacher Derek Treichelt asked. While he is a former bargaining chairman for the teachers union, he insisted he does not speak for PETA.
“I’ve decided that I’m going to vote no on contract. I can’t look into a crystal ball two years in the future. I don’t know why we have to negotiate a cap for two years from now. Why are we betting on them going up in two years?”
Benefits have always been tightly guarded in PSD, where teachers have long given up part or all of their potential raises to keep health care at no cost.
“When the negotiating team surveyed the membership, their directive was to negotiate no cap at all, whether its today, or three years down the line,” Treichelt said.
Another former negotiator, Dan Michels, said he, too would vote no. “I’m voting no because it says cap,” he said. “Our benefits will be capped in 2007-08, and the way benefit costs have been rising, we’d be paying out of pocket immediately.”
Health care premiums rose 10% to 15% each year for the past five years. The district has said next year’s cost would be about 8% higher than this year.
Union leaders now face the task of selling a cap that’s not exactly a cap for two years to teachers who have spent all year shouting “No cap.”
A Valley Press report on June 3 used the work “cap” twice. Union officials said at the time and since that the word was accurate, however unpleasant.
“It created a whole big thing,” said the union president, Simone Zulu. “We had some people concerned that the word cap was in (the newspaper). But we don’t know what the result’s going to be until the vote takes place. I really don’t have a sense of what to expect at this point.”
Zulu avoids the three-letter word altogether. “I’m saying maximum contribution,” she said. “Everybody was trying to stay away from that word. It was really affecting the judgement of everybody.”
Trustee Robert “Bo” Bynum sat in on negotiations, and he said the deal is a good compromise. “I’m certainly in favor of it. I think it was the best deal possible for both sides at this time,” he said.
But he won’t say cap. The idea, he explained, is to keep negotiations going within the deal. “That was the one word that you wanted to stay away from. It’s not the language that is being used” in the contract.
The district’s lead negotiator, Pauline Winbush, said the district will use the language in the contract, but is not responsible for selling the deal.
“When we signed off on the tentative agreement, we left with what we felt was good contract at the time,” Winbush said. “I certainly hope that it’s voted through.”
Like Zulu and Bynum, Winbush doesn’t use the word cap. “It would be a district maximum contribution. Whatever you want to call it, it would be a suggestion of a maximum contribution with the knowledge that there would be an option of continuing negotiations for that year.”
Table of contents for Palmdale's long contract fight
- Palmdale teachers vote 3 to 1 to reject tentative contract
- Dreaded ‘cap’ threatens to derail contract deal