July 27, 2007

This article presents a synopsis of school strikes in Pennsylvania during the 2006-07 school year. There were 18 strikes (including professional and support staff) in Pennsylvania during this period, with one district experiencing two strikes with its professional staff and one district having two separate support staff bargaining units conduct a work stoppage. The average strike lasted nine days.

The most difficult issues at the bargaining table continue to be salaries, healthcare and retirement contributions along with “second-tier” issues like the number of work days, preparation time for professional staff and class size provisions. Of these issues, it appears that health insurance remains the most difficult issue to bargain successfully.

Districts continue to experience serious rises in costs to provide health insurance coverage to employees. Unfortunately, there remains in some parts of the state a belief that professional staff should not pay anything toward health insurance as it relates to premium contributions. PSBA's research has indicated, however, that public- and private-sector entities throughout the nation are requiring employees to make premium contributions toward health insurance coverage -- and in some cases, quite handsomely.

Fortunately, more districts are able to successfully negotiate for some form of employee contribution into the collective bargaining agreement, with many districts implementing other cost-savings measures, such as “opt-out” provisions, multiple health insurance plan choices and increased deductibles to reduce the overall plan costs to the district.

Tax reform continues to be an issue in Pennsylvania , and PSBA anticipates that bargaining may continue to become complicated and challenging as districts feel the pressure from constituents and state government to build budgets with a high sensitivity to the tax burden on property owners.

Districts with unresolved contracts continue to be Brookville and Punxsutawney (2004), six districts with bargaining agreements that expired in 2005 and 22 unsettled from 2006. A total of 72 districts are continuing to work toward settlement of contracts due to expire in 2007.

For more information, contact Britta Bjorkedal, PSBA school personnel services consultant, at (800) 932-0588, ext. 3369, or britta.bjorkedal@psba.org.