Philadelphia schools cancel teachers' union contract

Published January 08, 2015

The troubled Philadelphia school district abruptly canceled its teachers' contract Monday, a surprise move designed to force health care contributions after two years of stalled labor talks.

The announcement came at a hastily-called meeting of the state-run School Reform Commission.

District officials said they have no plans to cut wages of the 15,000 teachers, nurses and other members of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. They would pay about $55 to $140 per month for health care premiums, and face other benefit cuts, starting in December, unless the move is challenged in court.

The American Federation of Teachers called the vote Monday "a well-planned Hail Mary ambush" by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who faces a tough re-election fight next month.

"Corbett's School Reform Commission has amped up a war on teachers and support staff," AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. "The commission would rather attempt to impose a contract than work with teachers to figure out what is best for Philadelphia's kids."

The district, one of the nation's largest, has 135,000 students. Officials have eliminated 5,000 jobs and closed more than 30 schools as they cut nearly $1 billion in expenses in the past few years. The district perennially struggles with a structural deficit caused by rising pension and health care costs and payments to charter schools, which serve an additional 65,000 students.

Officials said the benefit concessions were on a par with those made by administrators and other workers in recent years.

"Requiring teachers and other employees to contribute to their health care costs is a change and a sacrifice, but contributing to health care benefits is the reality of today's workplace," Superintendent William Hite said in a letter to parents. "Limited resources require difficult decisions."

He expected the teacher health care contributions to yield more than $50 million in savings and new funding per school year. At the same time, Hite urged parents to keep pushing state lawmakers for what he called a fair funding formula.

"Philadelphia families have made extraordinary sacrifices: students come to school every day in buildings that lack critical resources necessary for teaching and learning," said SRC Chairman William J. Green, a longtime Philadelphia councilman appointed to the post by Corbett earlier this year.

Corbett just two weeks ago signed off on a $2-a-pack cigarette tax in Philadelphia, which city leaders had sought to raise $83 million a year for the school district.

One Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Mike O'Brien of Philadelphia, called the SRC's unanimous vote to break the contract Monday "an exercise in union busting."

"It's certainly a violation of all laws dealing with collective bargaining," he said. "I think it winds its way into the federal courts."

Union officials planned an afternoon news conference.

City schools have been under state control since 2001, but have always worked under a negotiated contract. Under the takeover law, teachers do not have the right to strike.

Only a few dozen people attended the surprise session Monday morning, according to parent activist Helen Gym, who said she only learned of the meeting at midnight.

"It's a disgrace in terms of public governance and democracy," said Gym, the co-founder of Parents United for Public Education.

"As parents, we're obviously concerned, because the only thing that is really holding our schools together right now is the teachers and staff," she said. "I just don't know how we're going to sustain and keep a talented teaching force without a contract."

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