Hello Delta Valley Chapter 821 Members,

Yesterday, SUSD and your CSEA Chapter 821 bargaining team restarted contract negotiations as part of our push to protect ourselves with a contract before the district enters state trusteeship. The bargaining team is focused on securing a term and we exchanged proposals with the district on salary and health & welfare.

This meeting was the first round of negotiations since members who attended the ratification vote in May rejected the previous tentative agreement. Here is what was discussed:

The district had questions why the bargaining unit did not ratify the previous tentative agreement and we explained that our members were misled on some details of the agreement but overall the membership was dissatisfied with the district’s economic proposal.

We are still collecting member survey responses, but preliminary results show members want salary and economics as priorities at the bargaining table. Specifically, members want to see an across-the-board increase for all bargaining unit members.

CSEA has a pending Unfair Practice Charge against the district on the H&W increase impacting our members. We used that as leverage to push for an increase in both H&W and salary for all CSEA members compared to the last economic proposal by the district, not just the lowest paid members.

The district shared that School Services, a statewide public school consulting agency, is advising school districts to cut dependents from benefits packages if they are facing financial troubles. The CSEA collective bargaining agreement specifies that members’ dependents will be included in benefits packages and we will not accept any changes that would eliminate them from coverage.

The district did not present an economic proposal, but said they would take the options we presented  to the June 6th school board meeting for direction. We ended negotiations awaiting a counter proposal from them and rescheduled the next negotiations date from June 14th to June 13th.

With both a new district superintendent expected to start in July and the looming threat of a state trusteeship, it is critical we secure a term and lock in as much as we can on economics. The new district leadership team will likely take some time to acclimate into their new roles before negotiating with us and the other units. This could mean a delay of weeks or months after our next bargaining session.

The district remains financially unstable and could be taken over by a state trusteeship at any time. In addition, the district shared that the average daily attendance has dropped from around 40,000 students per day to roughly 29,000, a decrease of nearly a quarter of all students. This is significant because much of the district’s funding is tied to the average daily attendance.

Locking in our contractual rights and protections as soon as possible is crucial as it increases our ability to push back against potential cuts to wages, hours and our ability to fight layoffs and furloughs.

We return to the bargaining table on June 13th and as always, CSEA will continue to keep the unit members up to date on what is happening at the bargaining table.

Please be cautious with rumors and false stories from individuals who are trying to cause harm to the bargaining process for their own personal gain.

If you have any questions about negotiations, please reach out to your bargaining team members or your Chapter Administrator Rosemarie Lopes-Horn at delta821administrator@csea.com.

In Solidarity,
Delta Valley 821 Negotiating Team