On Tuesday March 28, a contract negotiating 15 different articles, including fair compensation, for classified employees, which are non-teacher MUSD staff, was approved at the MUSD board meeting.
Classified employees’ main focus was making sure they received a fair pay increase, which they referred to as “me too” since teachers received a raise in October, payroll specialist Sherry Ames said in an email interview.
“There are three different groups within MUSD. One is the certificated staff (teachers, counselors, psychologists, etc.) who are represented by the teacher’s union and their negotiations team at the negotiating table,” Ames said. “The second group are the classified staff (secretaries, custodians, paras, etc) who are represented by CSEA (California School Employees Association) and our negotiations team. The third group is made up of district management. A ‘me too’ is when the teachers negotiated their 9% pay increase back in October/November, it was assumed that the other two groups would also inherit the same 9% increase. We wanted to be treated as a separate group. Classified did not have a seat at the negotiation table when the teachers negotiated their pay and benefits back in October/November.”
Along with a pay increase, terms for 14 other articles were negotiated between classified employees’ and the district’s negotiation teams, Ames said.
“The biggest one we settled was ‘Article 7: Work Year, Work Week, and Overtime,’ which is actually new this year, once it’s approved,” Ames said. “It’ll be the first time people will be able to work remote if they have the ability to do so.”
Prior to developing the contract, the classified employees’ negotiation team brought their concerns about unfair treatment from the district during a board meeting on Jan. 24, 2023, Ames said.
“To us, the definition of negotiation is ‘you give a little, we give a little,’ but we kept getting ‘no,’” Ames said. “That was what prompted us to say, ‘We’re not negotiating, we’re just hitting a wall.’ So we had to bring it to the board’s attention. We make up 43% of the employees (in MUSD), and the teachers settled very quickly, but we just kept getting pushed back. We were trying to make it more equitable, equal pay, for all. We don’t do the same work, but just to make it fair for everybody.”
Team members began meeting in October of 2022, Ames said.
“We had a fairly new negotiating team, so we were still trying to figure each other out,” Ames said. “We’re hoping, because this was a very big, time-intensive thing and we were negotiating all these articles on the contract, that next time it will be done a lot smoother and wrapped up in a short amount of time.”
The district looks forward to working with CSEA, said Assistant Superintendent of Human Relations Jonathon Brunson.
“The District negotiations team and the CSEA negotiations team worked collaboratively like we did with our teachers association,” Brunson said. “We worked for five months together on creating new language that both parties agreed on as well as striking out old language that is no longer needed for each of the 15 articles. This was very thoughtful work by all parties in the room to ensure we have language that meets the needs of our district and our classified employees. We appreciate our classified employees and the important work they do for our students and staff across the district.”
Although it was a long process, it was good to come to an agreement with the district, Louie said.
“We really appreciate it because classified are some of the lowest paid in the district, so it was very nice that we got it all settled,” Louie said.