On Saturday of a three-day weekend for SFUSD’s students, Local 790 members for the SFUSD bargaining units had a meeting for parents and community members at their offices on Market Street.

Four people showed up-one member of the School Bus Drivers’ Union, two parents (one who is an active member of her union) and myself.

Ken Glenn, an organizer for Local 790, ran the meeting. But Rafael Picasso, a member of Local 790’s negotiating team (and a SFUSD employee), started off the meeting with, “We don’t want to strike. No one wins when there is a strike. But our members haven’t gotten a raise in three years.”

Some things that I learned from Local 790’s Parent/Community Meeting:

1. Local 790 is requesting that they pay 25% of their dependent’s health care and the district pays 75% of their health care. This is the level of dependent care that Local 790 members at SFUSD received during their last contract until July 1, 2005. According to Local 790 members, the District then without warning raised the employee’s cost to 40% of the dependent’s care. For the 400-600 of Local 790 1,200 employees working for the School District who have two or more dependents on their health coverage, this means $200 or more out of their monthly paycheck.

Again, the SFUSD employees who are in the trades (carpenters, plumbers, electricans, etc.) already have their dependent health care package at 75% (the District paying 75%/employee 25%). AND Local 790 members also had their dependent health care package at 75%-until the District cancelled it when their contract expired on July 1, 2005.

2. Approximately 200-300 employees (20% of the bargaining unit) within Local 790 are working as “As-Needed” or “Permanent Exempt Employees.” Several of these employees have been working 15 years as “as-needed employees” with a set schedule and specific duties that have not changed within the 15 years. “As-needed employees” do not get dependent care health benefits, don’t get retirement benefits and their work schedules can be reduced by SFUSD. Most of these “as-needed” employees work 3 1/2 hours-and they are required to “volunteer” the remaining hours to get the job done.

3. “Permanent-Exempt” employees usually work half days-and get half pay. But as permanent exempt employees, they can’t apply for any other civil service position at the District AND with the City and County of San Francisco. In other words, the district is forcing them into a position of not being able to get any other government job within the City and County of San Francisco.

4. With salary, the District’s offer is that Local 790 members would get a 1% raise on June 30, 2006 (so a year into their contract) and another 2% raise on June 30, 2007 (when their contract expires). SEIU Local 790 is requesting 2% on June 30, 2006, another 1% on Jan. 1, 2007 and a final 1% on June 30, 2007.

Mr. Picasso and Mr. Glenn both stated that the monetary difference in the salary package and the dependent care package between SFUSD’s offer and Local 790’s demands is $1.5 million dollars.

Local 790 members assured the small crowd that parents would get 24 hours of notice in the event of a strike. One of the parents requested that at elementary schools, the picket line shouldn’t shout or chant as students are dropped off or picked up at the schools-in order to avoid young students from being traumatized.

I requested (several times) that they hold another parent/community meeting prior to a labor action in another location that would be easier for parents and other community members to attend AND at a time that wasn’t in the middle of a three-day weekend. They felt that due to time constraints, they probably wouldn’t be able to honor that request.

Ken Glenn again stated that Local 790 have tried rallies, meetings and other actions to get the attention of the District in order to make a good-faith effort in negotiating a new contract that everyone can agree to. But Mr. Glenn stated that Local 790 feels that they have run out of the options of getting the District to agree on a mutually-acceptable contract.

Let’s hope that the Mayor and his team who are acting as mediators is able to find a mutually-acceptable contract, so we can all get back to what Local 790 and others do best-helping our students to learn.