COVER STORY
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from the school system. Even though things like that are public knowledge, we don’t always look at them closely. Now we know who we need to go to get the resources we need.” No Need to Be Intimidated Rosalind Moss, a Care and Safety Associate for A.V. Norrell, wants public school employees beyond Richmond to know that bargaining a contract is a lot more feasible than it may initially sound. “You can do it! It can be done!” she advises colleagues around the state. “It’s really about laying out what your concerns are and trying to come up with what the fix would be. The lawyers give you the ground rules, but you’re telling your story, and that’s what moves negotiations forward.” Moss is quick to add, though, that bargaining isn’t all about appealing to the administration’s sense of empathy. Her team went into every negotiation session with research on similar job positions elsewhere in Virginia. “Once we went to the first meeting and talked about our concerns with salary,” she says, “we did research to show Richmond administrators the type of salary other security officers were
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | APRIL 2023
WORDS OF WISDOM “Familiarize yourself with your current salaries and contracts. Be persistent, diligent, and patient. Sometimes it takes a while for the administration to understand what you’re going through. You need to organize and put all your issues on the table. Listen to veterans. Take advantage of your local union.” — Shan Lightly, School Nutrition Services
“Building a relationship with administration and school board is crucial. The stronger the relationship, the smoother the process.” — Darrell Turner, Preschool Teacher, REA Vice President
“Some people – employees and managers – might be afraid to bargain, but that’s actually just the fear of the unknown. It’s in your own head what you’re afraid of. Once you allow the other side to put their concerns on the table, you find out it’s not that bad. I think some people might feel like bargaining is going to open up a can of worms and in a way, it kind of is, but it’s better to address the issues rather than lose staff.”
A Plus for Students, Too Lightly has worked for Richmond Public Schools for more than 35 years and is no stranger to standing up for herself, her colleagues—and her students—and learned how being a union member could help everyone early on. She recalls noticing a student who never ate anything for lunch when she first started as a food service worker. When she asked the principal about it, he told her that the student wouldn’t talk and so she couldn’t order lunch. This didn’t sit right with Lightly, and
— Rosalind Moss, Care and Safety Associate
“First, make sure you’re a member of your union, and encourage co-workers to be part of it, too, because there’s strength in numbers. Second, don’t approach bargaining with a combative frame of mind, but be prepared. You have to do your research. We called around to get salaries for IAs in other cities. Make sure you know what’s out there [in terms of salaries and other contracts] and sit down with your team to come up with a strategic plan.” — Kacy Mosby, Instructional Assistant
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | APRIL 2023
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Photos and graphics by Olivia Geho
to work with us on the matters we were bargaining for.” Because the whole process is new for many Virginia public school employees and administrators, some approach bargaining with apprehension. Turner says that such feelings subside once you begin. “A lot of the fears really come from not being familiar with the process,” he says. “People think it’s going to be a slugfest full of verbal barbs, but it’s really a learning process. The school district was learning that we weren’t there to attack them or bring them down. We were there to get this agreement. Over the course of bargaining, our mutual respect grew.” Turner has been part of REA’s efforts since the beginning and was present for all the bargaining sessions, not just the ones for Licensed Staff. “It taught me some vital information about how our district is run,” he says. “Now, being armed with that knowledge, I can enforce our contracts and advocate for members better. For example, I didn’t know that all the funding for our school nutrition services comes through grants rather than directly
making and showing which responsibilities they had.” These statistics helped the CSA team explain why they deserved salary increases. Turner explained that after every negotiation meeting, the teams would reconvene at the REA office or online and come up with research assignments for each team member to help them craft arguments for the next round of negotiations. Salary topped the list for each REA bargaining group, which can make negotiations challenging in a state where school boards don’t have the authority to raise taxes. City councils and boards of supervisors allocate funds in Virginia. Despite this, REA was able to win improvements for every bargaining unit. Additionally, since negotiations were limited to two topics (salaries, and one other topic chosen by each bargaining unit), REA members couldn’t negotiate for everything they wanted. In the future, Moss says that CSAs hope to negotiate for additional training, for proper uniforms, and more. For Licensed Staff, Turner says key bargaining topics in the future will be revisiting “additional duties as assigned” and adding progressive discipline processes to the contract.