Newton Teachers Association initiates contract action

NTA President Michael Zilles Discusses Negotiation Process with Fig City

On Monday, May 14, the Newton Teacher’s Association (NTA) began a modified “Work To Rule” contract action, which is described on the NTA website as educators taking one day per week to be unavailable, outside of contracted work hours, for voluntary committees, meetings, or activities. The announcement states that educators will continue to perform outside-the-classroom activities such as writing college recommendations and leading extra-curricular sports and clubs.

This contract action comes during collective bargaining negotiations between the NTA and the School Committee’s negotiation subcommittee, which is comprised of Tamika Olszewski (Chair, Ward 4), Kathy Shields (Vice Chair, Ward 7), and Paul Levy (Ward 6). The current NTA contract — which is a 10-page Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) executed in March 2020 and expiring on August 31, 2023 — retained the form of the contract that was effective from 2015 through 2018 and extended by one year in 2019.

A graphic on the NTA website cites the NTA’s primary goals in the negotiation as follows: resources for student mental health, special education, improved instruction, and educator benefits and working conditions. Massachusetts law stipulates that “If a public union contract expires, the terms and conditions in effect at the end of the contract will remain in effect,” which is what occurred in Newton in 2019 and 2020 until the terms of MOA’ were enacted retroactively to the end of the previous contract.

Michael Zilles, NTA President, has held that position for 13 years, during which he has experienced several contract negotiations between the NTA and School Committee. He gave his perspective on the current situation by providing detailed responses to questions from Fig City News:

FCN: On the NTA website, the reason given for the modified Work To Rule is to demonstrate a show of solidarity and that the NTA will act with unity. Why did the NTA select this week, May 14th, to initiate this action? 

Zilles: In a contract campaign, the strategy is to do smaller actions first, in the hope that these actions garner results, but if they don’t, to gradually “escalate” the actions. We postponed the beginning of our contract campaign to focus on supporting the override, primarily with standouts. The current work to rule action is an “escalation” of our prior contract actions of lining the halls when we negotiate, wearing T-shirts on designated days, and holding two General Membership Meetings.

FCN: Was the decision made by an executive board, or by a wider membership vote?

Zilles: When we are in negotiations, and have to mount a contract action campaign, we form a contract action team (CAT). The CAT leadership comprises myself, the second full release officer who works full time for the Association, our two Vice Presidents, one an elementary teacher and one middle school, and the two co-chairs of the Committee. The CAT is ultimately accountable to the Executive Committee, which includes the members of the CAT leadership team, plus all other officers and committee chairs of the Association.

FCN: Do you have an estimated dollar impact, or range, that you feel would be needed above the currently planned FY’24 NPS budget to achieve your contract goals?

Zilles: We do not know how much the School Committee has built into its FY24 budget to address contract changes that we are currently negotiating, so that question would be impossible for me to address.  

FCN: During this current school year, teachers went on strike in Woburn (5 days), Haverhill (4 days), and Malden (1 day). If there is no contract in place by the September 5th start of Newton’s next school year, should parents be prepared for an NTA strike?

Zilles: It is illegal for teachers to strike in Massachusetts. All I can say is that across the state, in districts where educators have gone on strike and in others where they have not, collective bargaining agreements are coming in that are much more supportive of educators than what is currently on offer to the NTA by the School Committee. 

FCN: Given the School Committee and Mayor have already approved the FY ’24 budget, can you tell our readers what the procedure would be for the City to allocate additional funding if a contract is agreed to that exceeds the City’s present FY ’24 allocation?

Zilles: That’s a tough question because I don’t know how much the School Committee has actually built into the budget to address negotiations and how much they would need. The City of Newton consistently underestimates its revenues in its yearly budgets. For example, in FY22, property tax revenues increased by $12 million more than the city projected they would when the mayor presented her budget in the spring of 2022. In FY21, they went up by approximately $6 million more than budgeted. Something is wrong when revenues are going up at this pace, yet the schools remain underfunded.

On the other side of this equation, in spite of winning a contract that, in 2019, was a resounding success, over the past four years the members of the Newton Teachers Association have seen over a 6% decline in the spending power of their earnings as gauged by the consumer price index. 

FCN: Is there anything else you would like to convey to our readers about the present contract situation?

Zilles: Yes. Since the great recession, the Newton Teachers Association has negotiated four contracts with the Newton School Committee. Each time we negotiate, whatever the financial circumstances of the city, the School Committee asks for sacrifices from our members. When we negotiated in 2010 and 2011, we did make sacrifices in the face of the great recession. In 2014 and 2015, after the city had passed an override and after then superintendent David Fleishman had added approximately 300 staff members to the NPS payroll, the School Committee proposed a contract with zero Cost of Living Adjustments, and they stuck with this proposal well into the second year of negotiations. Last time around was nearly as contentious.

And this time, there is again a wish, stated or unstated, on the part of the School Committee and the Mayor’s office that the employees of the Newton Public Schools will subsidize the schools out of their own pockets. The members of the NTA can’t do that. They can’t afford to, and they feel very disrespected by the supposition that this financial crisis should be made into their burden to shoulder. That’s not fair, and not a reasonable expectation. 

Finally, it is important to note that it is the educators who comprise the NTA that make the Newton Public Schools excellent. All the rest doesn’t matter–the mayor, the school committee, the central administration–except the degree to which they support our work. WE–the members of the NTA–make these schools excellent. We deserve better than lip service on that point. We deserve fair contracts without all of the disruptive nonsense of these protracted contract campaigns. The Newton School Committee and the Mayor need to figure out how to support us instead of fighting us. Because that is the choice they are making now.

The latest NTA update on negotiations can be found here.