Middletown teachers, students back in school
Middletown school board, union to enter nonbinding arbitration
By alison granito
Staff Writer

As the events surrounding the weeklong strike by the Middletown Township Education Association (MTEA) spiraled further out of control last week, many in the community expressed fears of irreparable damage to the community.

After more than a week out of class, students and teachers in Monmouth County’s largest school district finally returned to class on Monday after the union called an end to the strike early Friday morning.

With about a quarter of the district’s teachers in jail last week, parents angry that their children were being denied an education, and the safety of Board of Education members threatened, the negative impact of the strike on a community that lost 34 residents in the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was tremendous.

"The Board of Education has destroyed this town and this district," MTEA President Diane K. Swaim said on Friday in the parking lot of the Monmouth County Courthouse, Freehold, as she waited for the arrival of the first contingent of more than 200 teachers, secretaries and nurses, who were locked up for violating a court mandate that ordered them back to work.

"They have proved again that they will not bargain and negotiate in good faith," said Swaim, referring to the previous round of contract talks in 1998 when the Board of Education imposed a contract on the union, after which the MTEA went on strike for four days.

"Again, it is their way or no way," she added.

Board of Education Vice President Sherry Gevarter, who sits on the negotiations committee, said it is absolutely untrue that the board caused the strike by refusing to bargain with the union.

"Throughout this entire process, the board has shown a willingness to bargain in good faith and will continue to do so," Gevarter said on Monday. "We remain baffled as to why this strike and the consequences that have resulted from this strike were ever allowed to happen by the association."

Gevarter said the view put forth by many union members that the board "put teachers in jail" was inaccurate.

"They put themselves in jail. Each and every person was given a choice before the judge. They could have returned to work. The association had it within their power to end that at any time," she added.

Gevarter said the union’s decision to call the strike on Nov. 29, when Loraine Tesauro, a mediator appointed from the state Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC), determined that mediation had failed and that the process should move on to the subsequent fact-finding stage, showed bad faith on their part.

"We were willing to take the next step," said Gevarter.

The union called off the strike Friday and agreed to return to work after a PERC mediator recommended that the negotiations enter nonbinding arbitration, which the board has said is essentially the same as the fact-finding process.

If the strike had continued into this week, Superior Court Judge Clarkson S. Fisher Jr., said that he would impose "more onerous" sanctions on union members who still refused to return to work after spending a week in jail, leading many to believe he was going to fire teachers who remained on strike.

On Friday, Fisher ordered the 200 plus teachers released from jail after the union agreed to end the strike if he ordered both parties into arbitration. Fisher appointed Ronald J. Riccio, a former dean of the Seton Hall University School of Law, as mediator. Riccio will meet with both sides and issue a report with his recommendations.

"The Board of Education is deeply grateful and relieved that the strike is over," Board of Education President Patricia Walsh said in a statement released Friday. "At the same time we can only be depressed at the sheer futility of a course of action which cost this community and thousands of students, parents, teachers and secretaries so much only to end up with the same situation that existed before the morning of Nov. 29."

The major sticking point in the contract negotiations has been the amount that union members should contribute to their health benefits, although salary and the length of the work day are also at issue.

Under the board’s offer on the table last week, teachers making over $65,000 would have seen 7 percent of the cost of their health benefits deducted from their paychecks per year, while those making under $30,000 would have contributed nothing.

NJEA representative Karen Joseph, who has been acting as the MTEA spokesperson, said last week that the union opposed any plan that required union members to pay a percentage of their health insurance benefits since that amount would go up every year.

Board of Education Attorney Malachi Kenney, the district’s lead negotiator, said that the board has now backed off the percentage plan and will settle for members paying a higher flat fee per year for their benefits.

Currently, district employees pay a flat $250 per year fee for their health insurance coverage. The MTEA has said that board does not take into account the deductibles paid by union members, which may be up to $1,400 per year.

According to Kenney, the cost of insurance has been eating up an increasingly large chunk of the district’s budget, sometimes going up as much as 10 percent per year.

"If we spend beyond our means on this contract, any cuts will have to come from jobs, programs, or be offset by an increase in class sizes" Kenney said during a press conference last week.

District officials have repeatedly said that any settlement must fit within the constraints of a budget that they describe as tight. In April voters convincingly voted down the district’s budget, prompting $1.1 million in cuts by the Township Committee.

"We feel that we presented a fair settlement package," said Gevarter. "In many ways we feel dejected that people did not even consider it for what it was worth.

As for the opening of schools Monday, Gevarter said that to her knowledge everything went smoothly.

"I heard things were calm," she said. "But emotions have really run the gamut here. I’m sure there are going to be some casualties as a result of this."

Parents expressed relief that the juggling act many were forced to endure while schools were closed last week was over, and that the teachers were back in class.

"I’m glad that schools are opening. We need to start the healing process and try to get back to the way things were," said Gina Garrison, president of the council of the district’s 17 PTO’s.

"The past week was hard on everybody. I just hope everyone can put it behind them," added Garrison.