HERMITAGE SCHOOLS Strike by teachers looms as 3 hours of bargaining fails
The board offered an economic package including an average $1,600 annual pay raise.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- Both sides say a strike by Hermitage teachers seems likely Thursday after a three-hour bargaining session between teachers and the Hermitage School Board.
The two sides met Tuesday but couldn't reach agreement on terms of a new contract.
The teachers offered a suggestion they said would have postponed the strike, but the board turned it down, according to Paul Estock, chief negotiator for the teachers union, the Hermitage Education Association.
Fact finding: The teachers suggested the two sides submit their dispute to fact finding, which would bring in a third party to hear both sides of the issue and come up with a recommendation for settlement, Estock said.
There would have been no disruption of classes had the school board agreed, because teachers would have continued working during the fact finding, he said.
Teachers have been working under the terms of their old agreement since it expired last July.
Duane Piccirilli, school board president, said the board offered a "fair economic package" to the 167 teachers during the meeting, including an average annual pay raise of $1,600 in each of three years.
The package also offered increased vision, dental and life insurance coverage as well as continued hospitalization at 100 percent paid by the district.
Average pay: The average teacher salary in the district is now $47,033. The top of the scale is just over $60,000, officials said.
Piccirilli said the HEA proposed an average salary increase of $2,700 per teacher.
Estock said the HEA was willing to move downward from that position if the school board was willing to negotiate, but the board made it clear that was its final offer.
That offer is below the county average pay increase for teachers, he added.
No more talks set: No new bargaining sessions have been set, and the two sides are preparing to strike.
Estock said pickets will appear at every school district building Thursday morning, and school officials have said that classes will be canceled for the duration of the strike.
Under state law, the strike will be short-lived, lasting probably no more than seven days.
The state will intervene at that point, forcing the teachers back to work to ensure that the district can complete 180 days of classroom instruction by June 15.
The state will also force both sides into nonbinding mediation at that point, essentially the same process as the fact finding the teachers proposed to prevent the strike, Estock said.