Buckeye Local Backpay
Transcribed by https://otter.ai. Please excuse any errors.
Katie Olmsted 0:07
This is Education Matters, brought to you by the Ohio Education Association. Welcome back to Education Matters. I'm Katie Olmsted, part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association, which represents 120,000k to 12. Teachers, education support professionals and higher ed faculty members in the state. Here's another number you should pay attention to 183,021 That's the dollar amount for how much back pay the members of the Buckeye local Classroom Teachers Association in Jefferson County, received in March, along with the promise of corrected paychecks moving forward, after a math teacher in that district realized his paycheck wasn't adding up with the contract that had been negotiated. It was a long, hard fight to get those teachers the pay they had earned. And local President Melissa panic says there's a lesson for everyone in what happened there. Take a listen. Melissa Sue, panic. Thank you so much for sitting down with us to explain this situation. What is going on?
Unknown Speaker 1:22
Well, thank you for reaching out to me, Katie. In our district Buckeye local Classroom Teachers Association, went into negotiations in June of 2021. Looking for an increase in salary. It had been a while since we had had, we had an increase the two previous years. But prior to that 10 years before, we had had nothing. So we were we knowing that we had money in the district, we were looking for a decent race for our members. We went in asking for a 554. And the board countered with a 444. And gave us another longevity step, which was phenomenal in our world here in eastern Ohio, because we haven't had money like that in for ever. So we hit our settlement goal, we were really happy. The board had told us that we have that for for for the longevity step and we left the table with only written language about it. We didn't have the salary schedule in hand. So we went from what we had had in the previous years having researched back to 1995, our indexes. And when we received our actual written pay scales, the Treasurer had gone in and made a change to our indexes, which were never negotiated. So it really threw us for a tizzy.
Katie Olmsted 2:57
So let's let's pause right here and try to bring people up to speed who may not be familiar with some of these terms we're using. We're talking about longevity steps and indexes. What does that mean? So in
Unknown Speaker 3:09
the area of indexes, we have a base salary, and that's considered where you're at one or 100% each year of service, you receive an increase based upon the base salary. And that goes by small increments as you advance on the scale. And if you have additional hours towards your education, like a master's, a master's plus 15, you receive additional salary increases. Ours are all printed out. And they've been this way, we went back to 1995, our oldest salary schedule we had at the time to find out what that index was. So now that was the index portion of it, the longevity means once you get to a certain point, your index number stays stagnant, but you get $1 amount with each step. So that was something that we did not have written out in our contract, but have since all of our grievance has gone through, we did write a memorandum of understanding to make sure that this never happens to us again.
Katie Olmsted 4:29
So let's go back to that grievance. How did you realize that people weren't getting the money they were supposed to get? And then what did you do about it?
Unknown Speaker 4:37
Well, one of our high school math teachers, who had previously been on in negotiations team many years ago, had made a spreadsheet calculated all of the increases as well as the longevity steps. And when he looked at it, none of it matched what the district gave to us. At that point, he gave me a call said, Listen, this isn't right. Did you negotiate the indexes? And I told him, adamantly we did not negotiate anything other than a percentage on the base. So we went from there, and contacted our LRC got her involved and said, Listen, there's something wrong with this. And she turned it over to the OEA financial people, which I, I praise them highly for the knowledge that they have. But prior to that we had gotten into some information. And our LRC contacted the board's attorney. And we set up a meeting with that math teacher, myself, our LRC. And then it was the board's attorney, the Treasurer and the assistant superintendent. And they told us well, you know, so sorry, there's really nothing we can do for you at this point in time. And,
Katie Olmsted 6:00
excuse me,
Unknown Speaker 6:01
I know that's what Well, I,
Katie Olmsted 6:04
I know, this is an audio only podcast, but my face just my jaw dropped when you said that. There's nothing they can do. They're the ones who messed it up.
Unknown Speaker 6:14
Exactly. And that's that was our contention. We didn't do anything. We didn't agree to anything other than a 4% raise on the base. So the attorney couldn't speak any longer. She stated that she had another meeting him we'd get back to us. That was in November of 2021. And she did not ever get back to us. So in December of 2021, a few ladies and I on our negotiating team went to a bargaining bootcamp. And that's where Eric Watson urban and Rebecca Pulsifer were presenting. So I approached them and said, Hey, did you happen to hear anything from our LRC? Randy? And Eric said, Oh, my word? Yes, we did. Rebecca will get you that information. So when she gave us the information and went through everything, it just totally blew our mind that wow, what they had done, because we couldn't figure out where they pulled these numbers out of. And so Rebecca had done a lot of a lot of legwork on this, and went back and found that because of the issue with the state minimum back in 2019, and she felt that there was a possibility that when they pulled those state minimum numbers, they just decided that that was what they were going to put into our new contract was state minimum numbers, which were considerably less than what we were earning. We have a very nice index. And so this really, it threw us off. And it was a considerable amount. She just when she started saying all this stuff, and looking at it, and not the breakdown she had. I was like, well, you something, lady. Yeah, she's excellent. And we could not have done it without her. She was the guiding force. And we said, you know, well, what about this five year forecast? And she says, Listen, you don't worry about them. They have money in the budget, they can pay you, you go after them. And I'm like, yes. So once Rebecca told us about this at the meeting, on our way home, it was like a three hour drive. In the rain. One of the girls had her nose in all of our old contract books. And we went back figuring things out looking at it. One was with the calculator, we came back. And needless to say, as soon as we figured everything out what Rebecca told us how far back we could go, we decided that we would quietly as the president and vice president, start the informal portion of the grievance the next day. So we immediately started and the treasurer would not make an attempt to meet with me in person. So I just told her via email that this was her notice of an informal filing of a grievance. She responded back, well, there's nothing I can do for you at this time. So I thought, well, she's denied the grievance. So the next day we hit her with a formal grievance. We were ready and prepared. So that we went in when we met with her so that she could interview us about our evidence. This is the treasurer. Yes, the Treasurer Okay. Yep. She became infuriated and yelled at me and said that the meeting was over. I'm walked out, without ever having discussed anything. I know what that paper says, is exactly what she said to me and stomped out of the room. So
Katie Olmsted 10:11
the paper being the language in the contract the index thing that she,
Unknown Speaker 10:17
it was everything. The paper was the grievance. I said, here's the grievance. Here's the information that we have supporting our need for the retro pay back to August, or actually, it was our first pay in September. This was already December. So we had been missing a portion of what was due to us. And she was not happy.
Katie Olmsted 10:41
What I can imagine
Unknown Speaker 10:44
that I felt bad for the lady with her, because she told her let's go and ordered her out of the room as well. So then what happened? At that point in time, we waited for her response to the level one of the formal grievance. And when step two came around the timeline for it, we served it on what was now our interim superintendent. Our superintendent had resigned the night before.
Katie Olmsted 11:16
Oh, my goodness. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 11:19
So we slapped him with that the next morning and said, Sorry, for your luck. Welcome aboard. You're having this. And he already knew what was going on. Yeah. So he had previously he worked in the district. So he knew what was happening. And that was right before Christmas break. So he had, of course, his time to respond to our grievance. And of course, he denied it as well. But he said, I haven't had time to check everything and to check the numbers and to make sure. So when he gave me the denial letter, I turned around with my other hand and gave him step three to give to the board, I said, you knew that we were going to do this. And so therefore, here it is. We didn't want to miss any timeline steps. So we were we were prepared, boom, boom, boom, we had everything written out. And we, we went with it. And during the time, we knew we had about three weeks between the step three, filing and the school board meeting. So that gave them time to determine whether or not they were going to really deny us the grievance. But they worked it out. And they realized that I honestly believe they knew they weren't going to when they didn't want it to go before the board. So they came back right before the board meeting and said we want to settle, we will give you back all your back pay. We will give you that pay scale forward, we will reinstitute your indexes to assure that everyone is paid properly.
Katie Olmsted 13:14
What was going through your head when you realized you had finally won?
Unknown Speaker 13:20
Just a lot of happiness. My vice president and I were a static we couldn't wait to tell our Association members because they did not even have an inkling where we were in any kind of process. They thought the pay they were receiving is what they should have no one question except for one person. And he I think he may have had a slight idea that we were doing something but he never questioned us.
Katie Olmsted 13:51
I mean, how fortunate to have a math teacher who's meticulous about the numbers when he came to you, what did you think?
Unknown Speaker 14:01
I was like, I was very happy that he had found the mistake, because it was almost time to sign off on the contract and had we signed that contract. I don't know that we would have won a grievance on it. on that. So we we were very thankful that he came forward and that we could get this taken care of. It was it was huge.
Katie Olmsted 14:29
Do you think this is something that has happened in other districts and they don't know about it either.
Unknown Speaker 14:34
It could very well be I think that what you need is when you receive the contract, you need to read every word of it. We have found. We're on draft number eight right now. Trying to get it settled. And as of today, which is late in the season considering the fact that we negotiated In June, we still do not have a signed contract. And it was because we found several mistakes. Some being wording. Actually, there were portions of other contracts in ours that did not belong. And there were portions that were missing.
Katie Olmsted 15:18
I can't really ask you to tell me about the motives of someone else. But does your gut tell you that was a mistake? Or do you? Does your gut tell you that this was done on purpose to take your money?
Unknown Speaker 15:31
My gut tells me that it was done on purpose. And they were hoping to get away with it. Exactly. And I will tell you and share with you that that mistake for less than 130 members was over $183,000.
Katie Olmsted 15:51
That is a huge, huge amount of money that they were not paying two members who had earned it. Exactly. What difference do you think that kind of money makes for your members?
Unknown Speaker 16:03
Considerable, it is considerable. When we averaged it out among the number of members that we have, and the amount it was on average. $1,400 per person.
Katie Olmsted 16:20
Wow. So and moving forward, their pay is getting corrected?
Unknown Speaker 16:24
Exactly. So now that we've done this three year contract of a 444, like for myself, because I've been there, I'm at the top of the scale. It's a $1,700, actually over $1,700 difference for me this year. So now give me my 4% Raise next year. And the five year that is that's considerable.
Katie Olmsted 16:50
What did you remember? Say when you told them? Hey, turned out? You've been missing money? Oh, and here's all your money. Oh, and here's a much brighter future for all of us. What did they say to you,
Unknown Speaker 17:02
I could not believe the number of people coming up personally, and thanking me. And I said, you know, it's just part of what we have to do. And we have to watch. So they were very excited. And as a matter of fact, they finally got their pay on March 18. So it took a long time, it was a long time coming, you know, very long time, more than half of the way through our pay cycle. So it does, it makes an increase, it makes a huge difference when I see my check coming to me. But I think just the fact that how thankful they are and that somebody would finally stand up to administration about something. They were blown away by the fact that they received that much money at one time.
Katie Olmsted 17:52
So what does that say about the power of the Union?
Unknown Speaker 17:57
Well, the union can be strong if you have the people behind you. And I really, honestly believe that you need to get your membership involved, the more involved they become, the more voice you have, and the more you can get.
Katie Olmsted 18:14
Do you think that being able to show your members, the difference that this is made in this specific instance, has helped build capacity for all of the things you want to do moving forward?
Unknown Speaker 18:27
Absolutely. It shows them that you do matter and that you do have a voice. I think it's one of the best things that we have. In our district, we are very fortunately, we only have one person who is not a member of the association. But I do believe that that person may choose to join next year based upon what we were able to do in one year.
Katie Olmsted 18:57
You have to be feeling really good yourself. This has been a long fight, it's probably been a very tiring fight for you. And you one,
Unknown Speaker 19:06
it has been something else. I think that my vice president and I we have a very good relationship now because we spend most of our time together. We spend more time together I think, than we do with our spouses. And it was just to get this done. And we couldn't tell anyone. I think that was the hardest part was that people don't realize that with a grievance. You need to keep it quiet until something happens and when when it did when the cards fell, it was like wow, you know, there we were, we were with we had that royal flush, finally made. It has made a world of difference I see in the way our members interact now.
Katie Olmsted 19:58
And that feeling Putting that royal flush down on the table must have been something else.
Unknown Speaker 20:03
Oh, you have no idea. It was a long time coming. It was an it has been a struggle for the last few years in our district, because we are in an area that we don't have much are still our steel mills have all closed down. Or electric, of course, you know, has been pretty much deregulated. Those were our sources of income in our district. So we have lost a lot of money. So in order for us to get a 444 and then to make sure that we actually got the entire amount has been very critical for us.
Katie Olmsted 20:44
Absolutely. And thank you for fighting for your members the way you have to get them what they deserve. Melissa, thank you for sitting down with us.
Unknown Speaker 20:54
Thank you so much, Katie.
Katie Olmsted 20:57
Do you have a story that should be highlighted here on Education Matters? Send me an email and let me know about it. I'm at Education Matters at OHE a.org or you can connect with OEA anytime on social media. We're at Ohio EA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Until next time, stay well
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
