Winning Streak
Common-Sense Organizing Reaps Big Rewards for ESP Local
By John Rosales
When board members of the Ventura Education Support Professionals Association (VESPA) in California met last summer to discuss how to engage veteran members and new hires in the coming school year, they had almost 100 percent membership.
As 2017 began, 796 of 802 eligible school district workers continued to pay full dues. That’s a big deal. California is known as a “fair share” state—meaning workers who opt out of union membership are able to pay reduced amounts—otherwise known as their “fair share.” Although these workers continue to pay less than their counterparts who pay full dues, those who pay less are still entitled to the union representation and bargaining services that benefit all employees, and which unions are required to provide.
“We are a family-oriented community where our employees have grown up together, gone to school together, and raised kids and grandkids in this community,” says VESPA President Teri Roots. “We know our members and our members know and trust that we have their best interests at heart.”
The VESPA directors and officers who attended the three-day planning session did not rest on their recruitment laurels or childhood friendships with members. Instead, they brainstormed fresh ideas to meet current needs.
“We know they are invested in this community and want to ensure that the district succeeds,” says Ruben Galindo, VESPA vice president and communications chair.
Despite their undying loyalty to local schools and students, members need to “see our faces, hear our voices, and know that we are here for them,” says Kendall Griffin, chair of the membership team.
“But we need them to know that there is strength in numbers,” she says. “We want to convey that it’s important for them to stay involved in the Association even if [it’s] to only stuff envelopes at home while watching their kids or to make phone calls.”
Member Retention
The availability of professional development opportunities is one key to retaining members, according to Griffin.
“There is always something new to learn within your job category,” she says. “We tap into that.”
Throughout the school year, VESPA leaders encourage members to attend local, state, and national Association training courses and leadership programs. For example, Roots works with the district’s director of classified human resources when planning professional development courses for members, which includes NEA’s nine ESP categories: paraeducators,skilled trades, clerical, custodial/maintenance, transportation, food, health/student, security, and technical services.
Last year, VESPA and district officials invited California Teachers Association (CTA) staff to conduct job-related training sessions for local employees.
“It was a wonderful experience for our classified staff to see our district working with our statewide organization,” says Roots, who has served as president for 11 years. At the summer retreat, board members also discussed ways to work closer with the Ventura Unified Education Association (VUES), which represents teachers, librarians, speech therapists, and counselors.
Wall of Members
In her office, Roots displays a list of member names printed from her computer and taped to the wall. After visiting a member, directors sign their initials next to the member’s name helping to ensure that every member gets at least 15 minutes of undivided attention.
“With the possibility of losing agency or fair share fees, it is important that we talk to everyone as
often as possible,” Roots says, in reference to the U.S. Supreme Court’s September announcement it would hear a case that threatens the ability of unions to collect “fair share” fees. An unfavorable ruling from the court would weaken unions, making it difficult for organizations like VESPA to give employees a strong voice at work—the very thing that helps students succeed.
Twice in the last three years, the court has been asked—and declined—to answer the question of whether the fair share fees that support public sector collective bargaining are constitutional. In the 2014 Harris v. Quinn case, the court sidestepped the question and in last year’s Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case, the then eight-justice court deadlocked on the question leaving it unanswered. Before June 2018, the court is scheduled to hear Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Council 31 to address the question.
“Supporters of the case want to remove the voice of working people that unions provide,” says Roots, CTA’s current ESP of the Year.
For years, VESPA members have attended the annual CTA ESP Leadership Development Academy and CTA Summer Institute to study education, legal, and job-related issues.
Galindo has worked as a technology specialist with the district’s technology department for 13 years.
“In the tech world, we have so many things that change constantly,” he says. “If we don’t make an effort to stay current with all the changes then our skill set remains stagnant and we do not grow as individuals.”
VESPA members work at 47 sites including bus barns, a mechanics yard, the district’s administration building, and facilities and trades department.
Community Involvement
In addition to budgeting funds for training, VESPA supports students through a scholarship awards program. Each year, the union presents four $1,000 scholarships to high school seniors whose parents are ESPs.
VESPA also supports the Ventura Education Partnership (VEP), a nonprofit coalition of education-oriented groups. During VEP’s annual SummerFest event, VESPA sponsors an information booth for children. This year, they distributed ESP coloring books and crayons.
“We are currently working with the district to create a welcome video specifically for new hires,” says Roots, who is on full-time release status. “We probably already know the new people.”
Flipping the Board
In the fight against outsourcing, education-friendly board members can make all the difference
By John Rosales
The private email sent by board member Simon Campbell of the Pennsbury School District in Pennsylvania was not meant for public consumption. But it was leaked to Donna Abrescia, a community activist and former part-time police officer who drove a school bus for the district.
Campbell’s email read: “We must outsource busing and break this union at any cost, even if it means having a less satisfactory busing solution.” Abrescia was also a member of the Pennsbury Education Support Professionals Association (PESPA), the union Campbell mentions.
“It didn’t matter if our drivers were more efficient than those from a private company, or if having in-house drivers was more cost effective for the district,” says Abrescia, who has worked for the district for 26 years. “No, his single-minded agenda was simply to outsource busing and break the union.”
The email was sent in 2010. At the time, Campbell and four other conservative trustees ruled the nine-member board with a collective iron fist. Together, they had proposed selling the district’s school bus fleet and outsourcing transportation services as well as other education support professional (ESP) jobs.
“Back then, we had a school board that was not educator friendly,” says PESPA President Marla Lipkin, an administrative assistant.
In response to Campbell’s email, Abrescia studied reports by the Pennsylvania Department of Education involving the outsourcing of transportations services.
“The next time I saw Campbell was at a board meeting when I presented the state’s budget survey comparing the transportation costs of every district in the state, including those that were privatized with those that were not,” Abrescia says. Out of 17 districts, only one showed expenditures below the state, regional, or county averages.
“There was no evidence to suggest that outsourcing reduces student transportation costs,” she says.
As in Pennsbury, school boards across the nation sometimes turn to outsourcing as an ill-considered effort to raise quick cash, shore up budget gaps, or streamline operations. Whether they call it privatization, contracting out, subcontracting, or outsourcing—transferring the work of public school employees to the private sector leads to inferior services and fewer connections to students and their education.
In Pennsbury, however, some board members took the pernicious threat of outsourcing even further. For them, privatization was less a fiduciary strategy and more a means to weaken PESPA.
Battles on Two Fronts
By 2013, the board moved fast and loose—distributing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) to subcontractors and accepting bids for transportation and custodial services, information technology specialists, instructional and non-instructional paraprofessionals. Employees from each of these groups were among PESPA’s 625 members, including 175 bus drivers.
“The board made it clear they wanted to bust the union,” Lipkin says. “No budgetary constraints, poor performances, or community complaints were cited.”
The board had a history of being hostile to unions. Previously, their union-busting agenda included the teacher-led Pennsbury Education Association (PEA).
“Since teachers couldn’t be threatened with outsourcing, ESPs became the target,” Lipkin says.
Along with the battle against outsourcing on the policy front, PESPA negotiators were simultaneously bargaining a new contract. PESPA had been working under the terms of an expired contract since June 2011. On the bargaining front, members found themselves at risk of losing or compromising not only future jobs but their present positions.
“The board was throwing out RFPs for everything to see what might stick,” Lipkin says.
Finding New Players
By this time, PESPA members had begun to organize internally, form committees, and develop a strategy to fight the privatization threat. At the top of their to-do list: Identify community-minded, educator-friendly board members for the upcoming November 2013 board elections.
With months to go before the election, PESPA members worked evenings and weekends canvassing neighborhoods with flyers. They created radio commercials that played during high school football games and on social media, sponsored information tables at school events, and purchased yellow yard signs with a website address and capitalized black letters that read: “Stop Pennsbury from Outsourcing.”
Garnering Community Support
One concerned citizen who empathized with their plight was the inimitable Frank Arcoleo.
“I’m driving along and I see this yellow sign in someone’s yard about outsourcing,” says Arcoleo, a self-employed certified public accountant. “It got my attention, so I contacted the group.”
Arcoleo saw the sign in November 2012. Before long, he was testifying against privatization at board meetings, hosting weekly PESPA organizing meetings at his house, and crunching numbers which blew holes in district reports regarding reduced costs through outsourcing. He and other citizens also established a nonprofit advocacy group, United Pennsbury.
Arcoleo also spoke at board meetings, explaining that outsourcing district jobs to out-of-town companies “would ruin the lives of our neighbors who would lose their jobs or, at best, have jobs with lower salaries, no health care, no retirement savings.”
During this time, PESPA members began knocking on doors, talking with neighbors, and handing out flyers about the evils of outsourcing. At one point, Abrescia and another member put 250 miles on her car over two days of placing flyers in mailboxes.
“We empowered ourselves,” she says. “We told members, ‘just do your street, just get your neighbors, just get 10 signatures.” Eventually, Abrescia organized a petition drive garnering 1,250 signatures, which was presented to the board.
Outsourcing Threat Lurks Over 2013 Contract
In August 2013, PESPA members and the board approved a new contract valid through June 2017.
Under that contract, PESPA compromised on several points, including higher health care co-payments and the dropping of dependents from PESPA member plans. The contract did not include language restricting the district from using subcontractors. This would change with PESPA’s 2017 contract.
In the months that followed the 2013 contract signing, momentum shifted in favor of PESPA and against the conservative members of the board, which is comprised of three members from three regions. In Region 1, two of the three members were up for re-election, including Simon Campbell. Region 2 included three educator-friendly members, all returning. In Region 3, two members were running for re-election. In Pennsbury, where trustees serve four-year terms, elections involving board seats are staggered.
At the polls that November, PESPA needed at least two of the four candidates they endorsed to win their races in order to achieve a majority.
“We ended up winning all four available seats, which together with our other allies on the board (not up for re-election) gave us the majority,” Arcoleo says.“
2017 Contract Addresses Outsourcing
Last June, the board approved a five-year contract stating that the district will “not engage in any further subcontracting of Bargaining Unit work, unless there are no reasonably available qualified individuals to fill the position” and other similar provisions.
The contract also includes a yearly 1 percent pay increase and column and longevity movement. Members can also apply for a new health care plan starting in October. At first, the plan has higher co-pays for specialists and higher out of pocket maximums, but over five years members will pay the same family health care contribution rate as teachers—14 percent.
“During the last contract, we lost good support staff employees because they could not afford to work and pay for their health care benefits,” Lipkin says.
The new contract also restores coverage for dependents, includes bereavement language, increases sick leave days for part-time employees, and contains a differential rate for paraeducators working with emotional-support students.
“We worked for five years to regain respect and benefits that we, as essential school employees, deserve,” Lipkin says.
