Thursday, October 10, 2013

October 7, 2013

LWESP Bargaining Update

To paraphrase Einstein, you can't solve a problem using the same type of thinking that created it.

When it comes to your pay, the Lake Washington School District wants to focus on "comps", that is, how pay in Lake Washington compares to pay in "comparable" school districts. But this just compares you to similarly underpaid K-12 public education office support professionals.

         Using this yardstick puts us behind.             Using this yardstick will keep us behind.

                                             We need a different yardstick.

Your LWESP team has invited the District to adopt new thinking, backed by research-based data-

  • Data from HUD (federal department of Housing and Urban Development) shows the average cost of housing in the Seattle Metro area exceeds 1/3 of what many LWESP members earn. And we all know financial analysts say we should not spend more than 1/3 of our income on housing because it doesn't leave enough for our other needs (food, clothing, heat, transportation, medical etc.).
  • Data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (and the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction) confirms we have lost ground to the Cost of Living.
  • Data from Massachusetts Institute of Technology confirms gaps between the LWESP salary schedule and hourly rates of pay and a Living Wage as calculated for our Seattle metropolitan area.
Our bargain is in its fifth month.  Our contract expired 37 days ago, yet, we carry on.  Our last bargaining session was September 18th.  Our LWESP team returns to the table October 10th.  The parties tried, but weren't able to find an earlier date.

More important than the time passed since the last session is the need to look at the issues in a new way.