Bargaining Information

Good morning BEA Substitute Members,

I’m pleased to let you know that yesterday morning, after six sessions and over 21 hours of meeting, your BEA bargaining team reached a tentative agreement for BSD substitutes.

We went back and forth with the BSD team for hours over certain aspects of this contract, and we are confident that we are bringing you a fair agreement.  You can see all of the agreed upon language here.  Here are some highlights:

• The daily rate has been increased to $222 per day.  This is a $37 increase per day compared to our previous contract, and $21 above the current state daily rate. (Article 9.A)
• Work incentives have all been increased by $50. (Article 9.B)
• In order to address our concerns about sub shortages, we agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), that requires the District to increase the daily rate by $15 on twenty days during the year that are historically hard to fill.  Those 20 dates will be published by the end of September.
• The number of days that retired BSD educators need to work in order to become eligible for insurance has been reduced from 25 days to 20 days. (Article 10.A.3.a)
• The number of days required to advance a step to determine contract pay for long-term sub jobs has been reduced to 135 from 150. This means subs in BSD will be able to advance up the salary steps more swiftly. (Article 9.A.3)
• Substitutes are able to flex their arrival and departure time to ensure they have enough time to prepare for a job. (Article 7.A.2)

One important thing to note is that our agreement states that substitutes will be paid the contracted rate upon ratification, which would be after the school board meeting on September 19th.  After that point, if both BEA members and the BSD board ratify this agreement, the daily rate would shift to the $222 as outlined in this language.  Until then, substitutes will earn the state daily rate of $201.01.

Our bylaws require one week for substitutes to review language changes before a ratification vote, and then another full week for members to vote via electronic ballot delivered to email.  Our hope is to send out the ballots for the ratification vote one week from today.

Finally, our union is in a much stronger position at the bargaining table when we have more active members.  Please talk to your colleagues about joining BEA–a strong and unified membership benefits us all!

Please reach out to any member of the bargaining team if you have questions about language changes or the ratification process.  We are honored to represent you at the bargaining table.

In solidarity,
Your BEA Substitute Bargaining Team
Lindsay Ray, BEA President
Sarah Kennedy, BSD Substitute and BEA Executive Board Member
Audrey Hood, BSD Substitute
Lesly Muñoz, OEA Consultant

Our contract expires in June of 2021, so we’ll be starting bargaining in early spring of 2021.

Are you curious about how bargaining works or how you can get involved?  Check out this great video by BEA President Sara Schmitt and BEA Vice President Lindsay Ray explaining the process and describing opportunities for members to be a part of the bargaining process.

Here’s a shorter version of that video with the highlights (our two and a half minute TLDR version):

There are SO many ways that our members can be involved in the bargaining process.  If you’re interested in being on one one of our bargaining committees (the Negotiations Advisory Committee, the Organizing Committee, the Contract Action Team, or the Bargaining Team), please let us know here.