[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelley. Shelley is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and change maker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. Okay. Thank you both so much for joining me today. I'm wondering if you could introduce yourself just with your name and pronouns and just a bit about who you are.
[Charlene Douglas]: Okay. So my name is Sharlene Douglas. My pronouns are she and her, and I am the president of the Method Teacher Association. I have been, I taught for 30 years as a co-school educator, and I am finishing out my term as president as a retired teacher, and I'm finishing it out, so it'll be done in June. And so as far as education, you know, I've been in education and I still presently teach at Lesley University as a professor and I'm going into my 20th year at Lesley University.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Joanne McKay. I am the financial, oh, I'm sorry, she, her. And I'm the financial secretary for the Medford Teachers Association. I teach fourth grade presently, mainly third or fourth grade is always what I've taught. I've taught a few other grades. And I've been teaching in Medford for about 30 years. Been with the union, probably a part of the union for the past 20. So that's, yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Yeah. And so we'll just start with our normal question that I ask everyone on the podcast, and then we're going to get into, I think, some content that people are excited to hear about. But if you could both say what your favorite place to eat is in Medford and what you like to eat there.
[Charlene Douglas]: So my favorite place to eat is the Real Gusto and you know, some of their Italian cuisine there is very, very good. They have obviously amazing pizza and actually I had my retirement party there. So I like the whole atmosphere. I like the, you know, overlooking the river and it's a great, a great little place. And so I enjoy eating there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. So my favorite place to eat, I can't eat at because it's small, but to get takeout, does that count?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ronnie's Place. So we love to get Ronnie's Place takeout at the school. He's right down the street from where we're at, the Roberts Elementary. And actually I taught his oldest son, Giancarlo, was in my class. I had a loop year, so I had him for two years and I presently have his daughter, Mia, in my class. I know it's around this place, but that's not why I was trying to get out. I actually the food and my favorite thing to eat there is my God, I don't even know. They have so many. I love them because they're not your traditional takeout. They have so many like different variations. So, yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: They're a favorite in our house too for pizza. Yeah.
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah, they are right there. That's really close to where my sister lives and I go there quite often too. I really do enjoy it too. It's a great place.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you so much. So I think we have kind of a lot to maybe cover today, but I'm hoping to talk about the negotiations that are currently going. So you guys are so generous to give me time early on a Saturday morning. I think it sounds like you're deep in some of the negotiations, but I'm wondering if you could just sort of outline, like give us a picture of kind of how we got here, how this maybe is different than normal negotiations go, any sort of light that you could shed on for people that might not like fully understand the process or what's going on right now would be really helpful.
[Charlene Douglas]: So myself and Joanne, we negotiated, I mean, I don't even know how many contracts together, maybe I've done at least I mean, 2007, I don't know, maybe eight, nine loads of contracts. I mean, I couldn't tell you the number, obviously, of contracts that I've been involved in and negotiating. What, and, you know, we've been able to, you know, always, we've been able to come to an agreement where it doesn't get to, you know, well over a year. This has been, and so it's that, in that respect, it's different. And, you know, we've always, one of the things that, you know, we, You know, we worked through, we would stay late. You know, these negotiations have been pretty scripted, I think, you know, that we're meeting like for two hours and then, you know, we go away. And I think that, that kind of did impact and sometimes, you know, we didn't spend, I don't think we spent good quality time there. Not quality, that's not the right word. I don't think that sometimes it was, you know, it was a time limit. And I'm not sure if that was the best approach to negotiations. I think sometimes when you're negotiating, you need to really just, you know, work through and get things done. And I think the time limit had an impact. And I think there was a... There was some, there was some negativity within the group. And I think some of that negativity stemmed from the fact that the unions here in Medford, they sort of a coalition and, you know, we wanted all the same things. And I think that was a big play that, you know, we, we came together 20 something unions. We have a group that negotiates health insurance called the PEC group. So we sort of came together and we said, you know, we're going to try to take a stance that all City employees, school employees were treated fairly and equally. And I don't think that was taken well. So I think that might've also impacted some of the things that have gone on within these whole negotiations. But it's, it's, it's been tough. There have been some, a lot of, there's been some negativity. There's been some misrepresentations. Joanne, do you want to add before I go into the no confidence, the whole idea?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that other contributing factors was COVID. I mean, COVID affects everything, right? So, you know, we have to meet by Zoom. Zoom isn't always the best, you know, obviously. We all have experienced that. And there's nothing like face-to-face, right? So I think you accomplish a lot more in face-to-face and it's definitely more difficult on Zoom. And as Charlene said, the time limit. So in the past when we would negotiate, we would set our dates and we would There was no time limit. So we'd show up, you know, December 3rd at three o'clock and we would go. And sometimes it would be really productive and it would be a four hour session. And then sometimes, you know, we would be an hour in and we'd be frustrated with each other and we'd just decide like, you know what, we have to call it today. Like we're not getting anywhere today. We're going to reconvene. So what was difficult for us is ours. This was a hard, hard stop. You know, so there were times that you would be kind of on a roll, you know, and then all of a sudden you get like you have to we have 10 minutes, you know, and then it would have to stop, you know. And so for us, was that a you know, a strategy on their point part where they put it off was this reality of, you know, in their defense, they were. busier than they've ever been before. You know, I mean, it's not it's not all against them. You know, they had so much going on with Covid too, you know. So it's really I think Covid affected it a lot, you know, you know, on both sides, you know. And I also think. that because even amongst our own team, you sort of fight more on COVID and it's not intentionally. I don't even more fight because you all over speak each other. You know, it's hard not to over speak each other. When you're in a room together and you're speaking, you know, body language is different and it gets loud on the computer. So you're trying to make your point and you almost over talk someone. Sometimes there's lagging, you know, so then I even think that those computer issues, I mean, Charlene, would you agree sort of add to that? Absolutely.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I've often said to Shailene before, like, I'd love to meet these people, like, just for a drink and see how different things would be, you know, because it gets heightened, you know, and I think, you know, that, that, so that, so that's another part of it. And then I also think that what was different this time is typically we've always, we've always negotiated with the superintendent, the lawyer, and one or two other people that, that speak out. And that wasn't the case. We don't, we don't. We don't negotiate with the superintendent. It is the assistant superintendent. And the lawyer, what was different this year is the lawyer barely speaks. And he always in the past had a lot to say. And predominantly we only hear from one person. And no one else really says anything. They interject in between. Oftentimes the superintendent doesn't speak at all. And there were many times the camera wasn't even on. If she was there, I don't even know if she was there every time.
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah, she should be there and her camera was off. it seemed that the assistant superintendent, David Murphy, was really the spokesperson, you know, who did all the speaking for the team. And that was a change. I mean, you know, we always worked with the attorney, the attorney always spoke, and he was silent, absolutely silent. And so that was a big change. And I think that You know, he knows the history of Medved because he's been around for a long, long time. And I do think that that sense of him not being an active participant, I think that impacted it also.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not to say that it, you know, it's bad change. You know, it's a different leadership. But I say, like, I think for us, that was different. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and that was a hard, a hard change to get used to.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. So different people involved in sort of the negotiations this time around, is that
[SPEAKER_01]: Different people involved, obviously, because different people, but just a different dynamic, you know? I mean, we weren't used to a silent superintendent. You know, in the past, you know, Roy Belson, he was, you know, he was the head of it and he handled it, you know? And so this was different because, you know, for us, we're used to dealing, you know, you, you, you, you know, I tell the kids in my class, like, I'm in charge of you. My principal is in charge of an assistant principal in charge of me, like directors in charge of them, in charge of them, you know, and it's like, you know, I relate it into government, you know, who's in charge of who. So, you know, we had always we've always had the whole like superintendents in charge, you know, I mean, that's been the way it's been forever, like a chain of command or chain of command. So this was a hard flip because it would be like, Why is she not saying anything? Why is nothing being said? You know, why is the camera not on? You know, until we finally we got used to that after a while. But in the beginning, that was a big change and hard to get used to because it's like. You know, an authority thing like who has I don't know, it was weird.
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah, it was weird. Yeah. And so I think that was, you know, a huge piece of it. And then, you know, there was the, you know, when we weren't making inroads and we took some actions like, you know, walk-ins and things like that, you know, that was, which is all right to do. And it was almost like that became, like, we were the bad guys, you know. Would you say that, Joanne? It was sort of, I don't know if that's the right term.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has just never been us against them. You know, you have some type of us against them when you're, you know, union administration. But I've always felt that up until recently, we really, really worked well together. So, and Charlene will remember when COVID first came out, first came, what you call it, but when it first appeared around, You know, we are hearing about it in the news and then we're hearing, oh, this is getting really bad. And then next thing you know, one day. Zero hour, we're called up to the high school, you know, you have to come up to high school and they take a couple of elementary people, whatever, they cover our classes, we go up there, we're like, oh, what's going on, you know? And they sit us in the room and they're like, OK, like we're closing school down. You can't even imagine how crazy that was. We're like, what? So yeah, we got to close school down. How are we going to do this? Like, how are we going to teach the kids? So the union was like, listen, school's down for the kids. The teachers will come. And they were like, what? And we're like, the teachers will come. We'll all come in tomorrow. Like, it's not bad yet. If people need to wear masks, it's a scary thing. We need to calm down the teachers. We'll figure this out, you know? And we worked so well together and they were like, oh my God, thank you. And we went around and we, like myself and another teacher, Ellie O'Leary, like we took the elementary, someone else took something and we talked to the teachers. We met with Diane Caldwell. She was in charge of elementary at the time. In the morning, early in the morning, like, oh, what can we tell these teachers to do? And then we went building to building and told them like, this is what they're asking you to do. And the teachers were great. They jump into action. Of course, no one knew what was going on, right? So off we go and it was great, you know, we're working together. And then next thing you know, we hear like, we're going to be closed down for a bit. And this was before our power Zoom sessions. We never had this before. And I know this sounds crazy to say we had this five-hour Zoom because now that's commonplace. But I sat at my dining room table and we sat there, myself, Charlene, Diane Caldwell, Bernadette Riccidelli, I think Paulo de Levers, I don't know who else at the time, other union members, and we hashed out straight for five and a half hours, you know, what can we do? Like, how can we work this out with our contract? We're going to need a set of parameters because we want to be as fair as it can be. We know, and we did it. You know, it was like this crazy thing we'd never done before. We worked so well together. There wasn't yelling, there wasn't fighting, there wasn't screaming. We did it. We implemented it. And then we had to come back together again when things changed, when they said we're staying out even longer. And we did it. And then Covid continued. And then we had the summer. And then how are we reopening schools? And that was very contentious, if you remember. That was more contentious of how we did it. And you argued a little. It was fine. And then I don't like we all worked well together.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, with this contract, it it changed. And I don't, I can never pinpoint why. Is it the leadership? Is the change of our side stayed the same?
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah, we did stay the same. And it was, it was, you know, it's interesting, you know, because when we went in that day and the first time when they say they were closed in the schools and, you know, you know, we insisted that our teachers have time to go back into those schools, get the materials they needed. They went in that day. They went in and it was very, very important, you know, for them because we knew what we didn't know how long, we thought we're gonna be closed for two weeks at the most. You know, we never anticipated being closed as long as we were. And, you know, when we met and literally we would, I think it was a Saturday, we met on all of us. And I think it was longer than five hours. I thought it was more like six, like seven hours. We just worked it out with the minister, you know, with some of the administration.
[SPEAKER_01]: For some reason with administration, it's, There's a lot of arguing. We know we don't.
[Danielle Balocca]: So I don't know why. So what I'm hearing is like typically the negotiations are with like a smaller team of people than is. And right now it sounds like school committees involved, which includes the mayor, like you. Or they're not involved. OK, that this is a question that I've had, like I said, because I hear a lot about like, how can we pressure our school committee members? What like what? So, yeah, where are we now? I heard I also heard things about like going to DSEE. And so I guess anything that you can do to kind of like demystify what's happening.
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah, if I could start. So basically the negotiations teams, everyone gets to choose who is on representative of their teams. Our contract is between the school committee and the mayor. Obviously the mayor was the chair of the school committee, have the final, they vote, okay? And they can put their representatives in charge. What we had asked for is that we knew we weren't making inroads. So we did ask for the school committee and the mayor to be part of this. Um, they did reach out. I think it was in June. I'd have to pull my letter and I could give you the exact date in a minute. But in June, you know, the, when we were really on a struggle, the mayor did reach out to me and ask for a meeting. And I thought that meeting, because from my emails, my understanding of the meeting was, was going to be by myself and the, and I didn't know who else was even going to be there. As a matter of fact, my co-respondent, Mr. Murphy, I even asked him, will you be there? He goes, I don't believe so. I don't think so. So, and myself and our MTA rep, great. So at that meeting, you know, all of a sudden we were, there was everyone in their team and that's when Ms. Graham, member of the committee showed up and it was just myself and Greg. So we were, I was like, well, my whole team isn't here. And they did, I think they did, they did a proposal at that meeting for us, but it wasn't my whole team. So we, I don't feel that we negotiated because my whole team. That was an off-the-record meeting. So that is the only true meeting that they have been at. So we've been asking for them to attend, to hear, and to make sure that we wanted them to hear our voices. And we didn't, that hasn't happened. And I think, Joanne, if you wanna highlight anything I'm missing, but that's the, there's the frustration on our part. You have on Monday, the school committee saying that they've been there at multiple meetings. You know, the school committee, I literally went back, myself and LEA, one of the members, and I said, did I mess up? Because you begin to question yourself. I said, did I mess up? Were they there? And we went through our attendance records and, you know, because we have to keep, I mean, part of the bargaining rules is we have to keep accurate notes in bargaining history, because that all plays into the contract, even after it's when it's ratified. So we did go back, we did check, and That's the best of my knowledge. Now, they were at when we were negotiating for COVID, the COVID MOA, it was very different than the actual bargain. OK, so we were still negotiating a COVID, a final COVID MOA and at the beginning of last school year. OK. Correct, Joanne?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[Charlene Douglas]: We're analyzing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. And also, so the other thing is, is that a lot of people don't understand with negotiation. When you negotiate, you come with a whole list of things, and you know there are things you aren't going to get, and they know things they aren't going to get, and you hash them out. But what you have is something occasionally called an off the record. You know, so you do and really, you know, you feel like you've made some progress and, you know, the mayor is obviously the head of the city and she's the ones that holds the financial purse strings, so to say. So oftentimes you might have an off the record where they feel like, hey, at this point, everything else is pretty good. Let's just pull to the side and just be like, look, can we get this done? You know, if we offered you and you kind of the purpose of an off the record is sort of, I don't know, Shailene, would you kind of just show your hands on what your bottom line is? You know, like instead of like having six sessions where we go, you know, five, five, five, one, one, one, five, three points, like, you know what I mean? Like you finally just like, oh, what's bottom line here? You know, like, can we cut to the chase? Right. So that was off the record.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not, that was not an official, you know, recorded where we take notes, where we, you know, so to say they came to negotiations, like, no, you didn't.
[Unidentified]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: You called a meeting, I reckon meeting and, and you had one representative with you. You didn't come. And we, we have publicly. call them out, ask them to come many times, you know, and to say like, this is not going, like, we need you there. And they don't come. So the newest, you know, obviously at the last school committee meeting, one of the members made a motion, Paolo Russo made a motion that someone from the school committee be there, you know, and that passed. So the mayor was there and it's funny because we knew, I mean, I, in my head knew no one else was coming with the mayor, but I don't feel like she was the representative because. They had already called the meeting. I don't know, how can you explain that, Charlene?
[Charlene Douglas]: Charlene and her- So basically, basically what I had done is, you know, I had written to the mayor saying that, you know, that what they had proposed, I had done a poll and it's not going to pass. So we can't, and we already, so I think we need to back and, you know, back up a little bit here for people to understand. So from the school committee and this whole, well, maybe not. So it had not, the ratification vote didn't pass. We have to now go back. Okay. So we went back and we asked to renegotiate and there was some nastiness back and forth with that. And then, you know, I reached out to her and I did, you know, say in my letter, please show, you know, and, and, and we had presented a proposal and we were looking for a counter and the counter was nothing. So, but we really wanted something.
[Danielle Balocca]: Can you say what the like elements were that weren't, that like didn't pass or like what the things you wanted to change in the counter offer?
[Charlene Douglas]: So we had two, okay, so let me, I think it's important people understand that. By law, okay, there's laws that we have to obey when we negotiate contracts. By law, we, and even in our grounds and in the law, there is rules that all contracts that negotiated by the negotiations team are brought back to the members. That's called a tentative agreement. And the word tentative means it's tentative. We don't have an agreement yet. Hopefully it will pass. And usually it does by 90%. When we went to our members to present it, and we did, and we supported it, and big MTA supported it, came out, even one of the bigger people from MTA supported that and said that it's very important. We think it's a fair and honest deal. Our members didn't think so. There were issues that they didn't like. Um, there was an issue about the implementation of changing the Wednesdays and what that would look like. And they didn't, there wasn't, the language wasn't strong enough on that. And so they really felt that they didn't, and there was a trust that it was a sense of trust. They didn't trust the district to implement it properly. And so that was one of the big things. And the other thing was compensation. There were two major issues. So they told us loud and clear, it didn't pass. We notified them immediately that it didn't pass and. That meant that that tender agreement now no longer exists. Even though I initialed it, which is what I have to do, and so did the superintendent, that TA is no longer, if it's not ratified, it doesn't exist. The fact that what they're doing is actually almost illegal, it is illegal. stating that we still have a tentative agreement. You know, we don't have a tentative agreement. Even the mediator has stated that we don't. And that's why we did when we did our action letter, we asked the mayor, you know, responded and said, we have a tentative agreement. You know, people were like questioning that. And I asked her to cease and desist and to, you know, withdraw that. She didn't. So we did file a charge with the Department of Labor Relations, you know, that that's bad faith bargaining and that's not, and that's against the law. Ratification laws are there. And if you, if you look even just recently, I think Melrose reached a tentative agreement and it says, a tentative agreement to be ratified by both the school committee and the membership. So until it's ratified, it doesn't go into effect. And if it doesn't, you're back at the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also think that, I think the tough thing was is, you know, what the community needs to know is that, you know, we're the representatives of our teachers. You know, we can't say what they're going to say yes or no to. We do talk to them. We think. And, you know, so on their side, they said, well, you said that this was a strong offer and this was this was good. This was good. And we said we did. We did say that because we heard how much you were going to give us. You gave a little bit more. You did something a little differently. And we thought based on what they say they're going to give us, like this is the best they're going to give us.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. Like this is good. People should accept this. We're going to vote again and we're going to renegotiate another year. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and we're going to bring it back. And then for the elementary. And again, I'm I'm actually not blaming Medford on this because it happened really quick at the end. Right. And the the elementary language we had tied into the money, like, you're not getting the Wednesdays unless we can do something with the compensation. And then. When it all came down in the end, you can imagine it comes pretty quick, right? Because now it's like, let's get this done, let's get this done. And through no fault of them, through no fault of us, even maybe, maybe it is through fault of us that we didn't put stronger language, but... Prior in the contract, when we tried to put something in the language, we were told, you don't put language like that in the contract, right? Because we had talked about a class size for something. You don't put language like that in a contract. We do that because that's in the best interest of the children. That's not something, if you put things like that in the contract all the time, the contract would be, you know, huge. So that's something we work out because that's in the best interest of the children. And so, It all did happen quick and we didn't put parameters on the Wednesdays. Okay. When it all rolled out, elementary was like, what? You know, not that they don't want to give up that Wednesday. It is for, you know, we agree better for the children to be there longer, but there were no guidelines around it. And unfortunately there's a trust issue. So now people are like, you know, I'm not going to trust what's going to happen when when the kids don't have their specialists, because we're getting out at 12 now once a month. And how is my prep time going to be made up? And I don't even get prep time now, like just all these issues. And what are they going to do about lunch? And what are they going to do about bus duty? And what are they going to do about this? And all of a sudden, things a lot of people didn't think of our side, didn't think of their side, didn't think of in the whole thing, you know. And I've said to Charlene before, we can take blame, a little blame that, too, you know. And. the administration did respond well to that. You would agree, Charlene? Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, all right, fix this, we'll put some parameters in, you know? So then we went back with them that basically we had two issues, the elementary issue and the compensation issue. And they did, they worked very well with the elementary issue. And I think they too said, wow, OK, yeah, we didn't think of that, you know, and we put together schedules and said, like, look, how would you move? Because we have these things called wind blocks where kids get extra help and we're on a block scheduling. And we're like, if we lose a specialist and lose the prep, like here's the only time you could take to make it up for us, you know, like because our schedules are crazy. Kids are pulled up, you know, and I think administration was like, oh, Yeah. You know, okay, we need to make some changes. They were very open to that, you know? And they did, and they worked with us with that.
[Unidentified]: It was excellent, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was excellent. And it was very productive. There was no arguing. It was great, you know? And then our other thing was, and the compensation, they don't like the compensation. And at that point, it's where things got bad. They were like, you even said this was a strong offer. We're like, okay, we did because it was the strongest offer you were giving us. So we did. We went back to our members and we said, This is the strongest offer, like, we think it's a good deal. You should take it. But the member said, no, no, it's not what's going on in other communities, not what we're teaching is like now, not as what we're dealing with after the pandemic. You know, it's not it's not enough to show value. And this is where our problem is, because I think they don't believe that we brought back that offer in good faith, that first call. That's what's being insinuated. And that we didn't do our job to get it ratified. And that's disheartening because we did. And we have members that said, geez, after that Zoom call, I feel like they were pressuring us to vote yes. People said to me, they were telling us all these terrible things. If you don't say yes, and it's almost like they were bullying us to say yes. I said, well, they weren't bullying you to say yes. We brought back a thing that we want ratified, and they need to let you know everything that can happen if you don't say yes. And then for them, for administration to say we didn't do our job, it's like, the members spoke.
[Unidentified]: Sure. Wow. And that's part of the process.
[Charlene Douglas]: That's the democratic process.
[Danielle Balocca]: So that negotiating that you're describing around changing with the Wednesdays, has that happened since the, that happened like very recently?
[SPEAKER_01]: That happened after we didn't ratify the contract. We got back together and they were willing to work with that, but they were only willing to work on the elementary.
[Charlene Douglas]: And it was always no to money. It was never even discussed. I mean, you know, on October 25th, my discussion, you know, I'd said the two issues and it was, no, you understand, we're not gonna talk money. And I said, I understand that, but it's still an issue. You understand, we're not, I said, I get what you're saying, but it's going to be an issue. And, you know, and even, you know, when we met that day, that Wednesday face-to-face, you know, I said, do you know that we're not gonna talk money? And I said, yes. And I told my members that. And I said, and I told them that, but I'm gonna let, at that point, I let, Some of the other members on the team really addressed the same voice because my voice they weren't hearing, I didn't think, so I felt that it needed a couple of other members on that team. So they didn't hear that.
[Danielle Balocca]: I can't imagine what it's like to negotiate salary in such a public way and like, and that feeling so linked to like your value and your job and your value in the community. I wonder like, what, like, what do you, like, what do you think the solution is to the, to the money issue?
[Charlene Douglas]: So I don't think, you know, we're not, you know, I think, first of all, I think we're in very different times too. I mean, you're looking around and, you know, teachers, the profession is definitely, it's changed, you know, in all the years. So I think that, you know, we've, we've. We've made reasonable offers. I mean, we just want something that's fair and equitable. And it's very, very important. And, you know, other communities, you know, we posted the raises they're getting, you know, and ours isn't close to that. And I think, you know, one of the things that was the members were very, very concerned about in that year was when we negotiated our package, it was You know, it was an eight, it was stated, it was an 8.5, but the last 1% wouldn't take effect until the year after our, you wouldn't see it actually until the year after our contract. Right, you wouldn't get it on the last day, but you really wouldn't see that until when you came back in your first paycheck. Okay, so what happens there is that the membership saw it as, you know, not an 8.0, they were concerned. And they were very concerned about that. And I think their concerns were heard when, you know, it was presented at Monday's school committee that that 8.5 is really a 7.6. So right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the other thing, too, is like our members. So our members tell us, like, we're not going to take less than a certain. Right. And and so we go in there knowing that they're not going to take less. Well, they say they're not going to take less than a certain amount. They're looking for a certain amount. Right. And so what we brought back was less than the CERN. And sometimes that happens, right? Okay, because we don't hold the purse strings, but it was close, right? But not really, because 8.5 was close to what we want, but not really because they're giving it on the last day, right? So now it's not really what we want, plus we don't see it that whole year. So what we mean on the last day is on the last day of school, you have a salary scale. So on the last day of school, your salary for the next year will go up one percent, which means you got none of that money in your pocket. OK, but you will start the next year one percent higher. OK, great. Well, if you're a brand new teacher making fifty two thousand dollars, right, you're going to get five hundred and twenty dollars into your full year schedule the next year. Break that over 26 checks. It's not a lot of money, right? Yeah. Plus. Plus, then the next time we negotiate, because this has happened in the past, what's their answer going to be? We just gave you one percent.
[Unidentified]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the fear of the members that it's going to carry over to be like, well, we just gave you one percent.
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah. So now we're only going to give you maybe two. Now we're only going to give you two. Right. Well, we're only going to give you one because real quickly now you're getting a 2% raise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. So these are the- I feel like we're on the last day because it's going to carry into the next year.
[Charlene Douglas]: And that's the result.
[Danielle Balocca]: So you're negotiating a contract that has been expired for over a year, is that right?
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah. June of twenty one.
[Danielle Balocca]: You're.
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah, absolutely. Right.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. And so when is the next when would you when would you.
[Charlene Douglas]: So it's fine. August 31st, twenty twenty one. So and then. So we're up again. That's three years. So hit twenty twenty to twenty twenty. So we got twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three. And then the 23, 24 school year, and then we're up again. So we're going into our second year without a contract. We'll be right back at the table again in a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. So next spring, we'll technically, not this year, but... In the last year of the contract, that spring, we'll request to meet again to start negotiations. You know, so it will only be one working year before we're back at negotiating again.
[Charlene Douglas]: You know, and so that's been, you know, that's been, you know, and there's a concern about, you know, money. I mean, you know, the city, you know, with the money and, you know, we have the ESSER funds and the district has come out and school committee has come out and said, you can't use those ESSER funds to maintain teachers. We've shown them documentation, legal, you know, documentation from you know, all over and other schools are using that money. So that money is there to do that. And they keep saying they can't do that. And that is, you know, from the education, Cardoza has stated that. So those are, you know, in the Chapter 70 money. I mean, you know, the district is saying they're not going to get the Chapter 70 money. Well, they got it this year. And the new elected governor, Healy, has said, we're putting that money in. So Medford is scheduled to get that Chapter 70 money over the next years, which would be anywhere, I think, up to $5 million of that. And then we just worked really, really hard to get passage of the millionaire's tax, as you know, MTA, so to get more monies into our schools. And we have the elected body there of the school committee who are, you know, progressives and have stated that, you know, they supported question one, they supported the various questions, but then they're saying something very, very different. They're saying, no, we don't have that money. Well, then why do we do all this fighting for? And why is that, and that money is there. And that's another big frustration for us, you know, and for them. I mean, and even for their political stance, it's confusing.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I can hear that maybe part of the answer you're getting is like, we don't have this money or that's not part of the budget that we're going to allocate to teachers. And the budget is sort of a statement of your values in the same way, right? Like if we care about education, if we care about teachers and the way that we've had to lean on teachers and education throughout COVID, how do we not adjust the budget in order to meet these needs, right?
[Charlene Douglas]: Exactly. And that's very and that's how the members of Philly and it's, you know, you know, enjoying you can agree with me. Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason we're asking for, I think a big sticking point that when we first came in, you know, we we shot high. Right. So you're always going to shoot high. Right. Because you're going to negotiate. Right. They're going to come in low. We're going to come high and you're going to meet somewhere in the middle. Right. But they were they were highly offended by our high, which is six, six, six. But that was the rate of inflation. I didn't like that. So we came with six, six, six. And they thought that was ridiculous. And we're like, the inflation rate is eight percent. Right. I mean, prices are ridiculous. Look at how much it costs everywhere you go. Right. So we, we honestly didn't think that was ridiculous. You know, did we know we were going to, we, we know we weren't going to get six, six, six, but we knew we would come down a little bit and we thought, wouldn't it be great if we got 12, right? Like, wouldn't that be great. That'd be fantastic if we got 12. And you know, now it's, it's not anywhere close. It's, it's basically what, what Cal, And we deserve it. I mean, we work hard. It's hard. It's challenging to be a teacher nowadays. Kids have a lot of issues now after COVID. We deserve it.
[Charlene Douglas]: Yeah. And teachers don't just, you know, work, you know, you know, the eight to two. I mean, everyone knows the teachers, you know, the elementary teachers this week, you know, they're they're working on their preps to meet with parents during the report card conferences. They're they're staying later after school. They're coming in before school. You know, all those things, because they really do want to be, you know, there for the for the for the children. And even yesterday after our standout, everybody went right back into that building, right back to work. And they didn't miss a beat. They never missed a beat. And that's what people need to understand. They haven't. They haven't missed. These teachers in Method have not missed a beat. They have not. During COVID, during whatever, I mean, we were the ones, and people, you know, our memories are not as long. It was the union who clearly stated, we need to go into the school. We need to get our materials. We need time. We need to be ready when we meet the kids that Monday, whatever that looks like. You know, I don't even, it was ridiculous. I don't even know how we ended up getting packets and things. Joanne, weren't you about putting packets together and delivering them to people's houses and driving around the city? I mean, you, We needed that time. And they wanted to shut the buildings and not even let us in. And we were like, oh, no, no, no, no. We need to go back. We need to go in. And even the school committee, when they voted to shut the door, they forgot. And I was like to the lawyer, I said, we got to go. Oh, yeah. And they said, oh, yes, yes, we'll fix that. Because I know everybody was in a state of shock, but that's how important it is. Teachers go into this profession and, you know, a teacher myself and Joanne, you know, we didn't go in for it. We don't expect, we're not going to make the money a CEO makes or even a superintendent makes. We know that, you know, we know that in the classroom that you're going to have to work a lot harder. But we also want to be respected and not live in a way that we can't make ends meet. I mean, 37 years as an educator, I have never not worked two and three jobs, never, to make ends meet. Joanne works. I mean, you know, all of us do. I mean, that's just, you know, that's the way it is. But I think people after COVID and everything like, oh my God, this has got to stop. You know, if we want people to go into this profession, then we need to give them the money that they truly, truly deserve. They work just as hard as anybody in college. You get your master's degree. Those courses are tough. I teach those courses. They're tough courses and you have to know theories. It's a lot.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm wondering quickly, I know I've taken a lot of your time, but if you could just describe your hopes for the Boy With No Confidence and then anything that the community could know, like how we can support you, how we can sort of prep and plan for the next round of negotiations.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think I hope this is my own personal event. Why people said, why did you do a vote or no confidence? What was your reason for that? And I think our reason was to let the community know, like, it's not going well and we need your help. you know and we have no confidence in the way things are going and we need pressure because listen what does it come down to if these people want to to continue their jobs they need the votes right and so they need the community to say like Come on, help these teachers, we believe in the teachers, they need more, figure it out, get creative. Again, what we're asking for is not unreasonable. And I can hold my head high and say that, I really can. We're not sticking on, oh, okay, Medford's that. this 7.5 one on the, you know, with the one on the last day of school and we're holding fast and we're saying like, we want 12%, we want 12%. We're not like, you know, we're 4% off, 5% off. Ridiculous. We're not going to do it. Like we're so close. It's, it's, it's, it's frustrating because That's the thing we want people to know. We're not asking for something ridiculous. And it's like we're told all the time, like this is for the kids and this is hurting the kids. And what you're doing is hurting the kids. So stop. Then stop. Then you stop. You give us what we need. We deserve it. If it's so close like this, then stop. Figure it out. You can figure it out. Get creative with that. Ask for money. It's a lot of money out there. You can make this happen. So when you say we're hurting the kids, we're not hurting the kids. We're fighting for respect. We're fighting for I believe we're fighting for less than we deserve.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Well, it's also interesting, like when we see you all out there in the beginning of the school day, what kind of conversations that opens to have with kids about like people advocating for what they need. Right. And like just I think there's some lessons there, educational.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I find what's interesting is when we when we turn around to go in, because, you know, we'll stop. We have to be at my, you know, elementary level. We have to be in our classes at 830. So someone's always the watchkeeper, 825. And we'll be like, but, you know, we all turn around and we walk through. So at the Roberts, you know, there's that underpass. And when we walk through the kids like. Teachers, teachers, and they're high-fiving us and stuff on the way by. And it's so funny, you know. And they don't really understand what's going on, you know. And we don't tell them. And they say, what are you doing out there? We say, well, you know, we just we don't have a contract and we're trying to get a fair contract. But it's funny that the kids are high-fiving, well, teachers, they're for us, you know.
[Danielle Balocca]: Who's a bigger celebrity to an elementary schooler than a teacher?
[Charlene Douglas]: And I agree with exactly what Joanne said. We're not, we're not asking, you know, you know, we're not asking for 12. We're not asking for, you know, we, we came back and you, you know, that we said it was cost neutral and they disagree, you know, so. It's not budget neutral.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is cost neutral, but it's not budget neutral, but like get creative. You can get creative and you can move around and ask for funds and you can, and we have a mediator and we did talk to the mediator about that. And you know, ESSER funds can be used for a lot of things. So if you have a budget, right? You have a budget that comes out of the city and then you have these ESSER funds that you can use and you're saying, we can't use these ESSER funds for your salary. Okay. There are a lot of things in this budget you can use those ESSER things for. So get creative.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay. Get creative. I'm going to give you a little analogy. I waitress, right? And so you have certain sections, you know, and then sometimes Someone that has a reservation isn't going to show up. They call at the last minute and they say they're not going to show up. And my table's been sitting there waiting for them, six people in, right, with, you know, set, and I'm waiting for this table. And now it's been empty for a while, right? What is the owner of the restaurant going to do? She gets creative. She moves around a reservation to make things fair so that one waitress isn't getting all, like, the tables while another waitress sits there. I know it's a silly analogy. That's a great around. And she moves this reservation over here. She gets creative to, you know why? Because she wants her restaurant working, right? She wants things to be fair. She wants things to be equitable. Okay. So they can erase the section and move something over. Like take those ESSA funds. And if you've budgeted for this and you know, you can use ESSA funds for something like this, then slide the ESSA funds into that and slide the money out of that. It doesn't take, get creative.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, we're not asking for four or five percent more. We're literally asking for like a half a percent more.
[Danielle Balocca]: When you were describing the amount of money that would be shifted to the next year, it seems like a small amount to sort of argue over being able to move into that full salary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. And so and I feel like they're when they're saying this is bad for the students, they're blaming us, you know, and it's all how you look at it. So like, you know, you the people that are for us, they're going to say, come on, knock it off. Give it to them. This is hurting kids. This is hurting this. You know, why are you doing that? And then you have the other people that are going to say, oh, teachers, don't be ridiculous. You know, it's a half a percent or it's it's it's a whatever it's or this isn't that. Just cave and do it. This is ridiculous. Have it be over. But we're always the ones that cave. We're always the ones, you know, we're the ones that are. using our own money for supplies. We're the ones that are, that are, you know, parents will say, Oh my God, you answered my email at 11 o'clock at night. And I was like, Oh yeah, well, I looked at the email and you told me your son's crying because I gave an assignment, you know, maybe 11 o'clock, eight o'clock, like, because he's upset or she's upset. And so I said, don't do it. Don't do the assignment. Like, I don't need your kid crying. Oh my God. You know, you know, and they're like, well, thank you for responding this late. I was like, well, because we care about our kids, we do these extra things. You know, so Medford, care about your kids.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, yeah. Yeah. It's sort of like that's pretty like simple analogy people use of like when you're on the airplane, you have to put your oxygen mask on before, you know, you're the other person. You have to be able to sustain yourself in this work to continue to do the good work to support our kids. That seems like a simple solution. And if it's about 1%. Right.
[Charlene Douglas]: That's a great way of looking at it. Yeah. It's a work per se. It's really... For a city with such a large budget, what we're asking for is really like pennies.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really is. And they're like, we're competitive and we're competitive. And that's true. Oh, our salaries are competitive. Okay, great. Your salaries are competitive, but listen, Don't you want, you can't always say to another town and be like, well, ours is higher than this town. Well, great. Then that helps because qualified teachers are going to want to come teach for you, right? So if you say, well, still give this amount, we're competitive. Ours is still better than other communities. Yeah, but we can also show you a lot of communities where they aren't. And there are a lot of people that are leaving to go to other communities. So they're losing teachers. Yeah, you know, ski jumping ship teaches that have a commute. Say, why would I do this when I can lessen my commute and make $10,000 more?
[Charlene Douglas]: And it's, you know, it's not, those of, we live in Medford, I mean, you know, it's not, it's, the taxes are expensive, it's not the hostages are expensive.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not that expensive though, you know? I work with the teacher that lives in Medford and she's just like, my taxes aren't that high. I asked her how much her taxes were compared to mine, thousands less. And I'm not gonna get into that issue.
[Charlene Douglas]: I think they're high.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying, but Medford is not a poor community.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, they're not a poor community. Look at what houses are selling for. Millions in the millions. Not to say that everyone in Medford has a lot of money, but it's not like we're one of the poor communities. I would say Medford does pretty well. I mean, you have your variations, but we're not what you would consider a poor community.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and I think, like I said before, it's how you allocate the money that you do have that sure shows those values, right? I don't want to take more of your time. I think I'm really thankful for the time you've given us today. And thank you so much. I wish you guys the best of luck. I hope this comes to a satisfying resolution soon. Anything else that you want to mention before we wrap up?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like to mention that thank you to the teachers, any teacher out there, how hard they're working. Thank you. Thank you for fighting to support yourselves, fight for yourselves, show your worth, because they're the heartbeat. Through it all and through all the antagonism and COVID and everything, those teachers have showed up and given their all. And they do it for the kids. You know, we're not doing it for ourselves. They're doing it for the kids. So I say even through all this, no matter what, no matter how anything ends, thank you for the teachers. And people have to know how hard they truly work because they do.
[Charlene Douglas]: And I can echo the sentiments and, you know, I can see it. And they're amazing. They work so hard. They're there, you know, like Joanne says, late hours, answering emails, you know, all of those things. And I can't thank them enough. They're out there. They want people to know. how they're worth. And I think that's the best way of putting it. They want people to know that they're worth and they want people to know that they truly do want a fair and equitable deal. And it's really when you are happy at a job and you feel good, You perform better. When you're not happy or you fail to moralize, you don't do as well. That is so important. If you don't have, and if people are feeling that deflated or, you know, and things like that, that's what it is. And you can say it as much as you want. You know, we appreciate you, but please remember, if you're going to say you appreciate me, then Don't come out and say that, oh, well, we got to spend money, those asset funds. So if you don't do this, then we're not going to let it take that money away. Okay. Don't do things like that because that's demoralizing. And it's really important not to do that. And it's important to show that. you know, I do respect you 110% and I'm going to get this. And I'm appreciative. I'm really, truly appreciative of the teachers and what they do. And I want to thank them. They have been very supportive of me and, you know, of this negotiation. And I want to thank the team. This negotiations team, I mean, just to give you an example, I mean, we're ready at a minute's notice. I mean, we literally, Wednesday, worked four hours. You know, we went in there at 3.30 and we didn't even have dinner, all of us. 8 o'clock, we were in a room, no internet, nothing. It was long. And then they called us up the next day, asked us to meet, gave us an offer that we made a counter. And they refused our contract, a very reasonable contract. And you know that, but this team, and then again, yesterday, we're on again. Last night, we're on again. And I'm sure we'll be on again this weekend. I guarantee you. But I think that, you know, thank you to the teachers and let's get this done. We're close. Let's get this done. And let's make sure, you know, we show the value in the city that we value the kids and the educators. And doing that is the only way is getting a fear in it, won't you?
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you so much, and I hope it is a speedy, speedy conclusion. I hope so, too. I hope so, too. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Keshaman. Music is made by Hendrik Giedonis. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.