Burlington School Support Staff Livable Wage Campaign 2007

Current Status
Brief Background
Talking Points
Voting Record on Livable Wage Resolution Nov 05
Facts & Figures for the Burlington Campaign
Burlington School Board Commissioners Contact Info



UPDATE 1/14/08: After a three-year campaign the Burlington Para-Educators unit of the Burlington Education Association (BEA) and the Burlington School District reached a contract agreement that will guarantee them livable wages over the next four years - the contract was ratified by the School Board on Tuesday Oct. 30th. The Contract states that starting hourly pay is being raised from $9.43 to $10.20, plus benefits.  This starting wage will increase to a livable wage of $14.15 over four years.

This campaign was hard work and not without struggle.  Over the past three years para-educators and community partners, including members of the Burlington Livable City Coalition, educated the community, organized petitions and speakouts and worked to ensure school board members were always keenly aware of the livable wage issue.

This victory not guarantees para-educators be paid a wage that will allow them to meet their basic needs but it finally addresses the broader issue of a gender wage inequity in Burlington Not only is this a victory for the para-educators and the community but this move sheds light on the gender wage gap.  Currently Burlington municipal workers, who are primarily male, are guaranteed a livable wage by ordinance, while para-educators, most of whom are women, were not guaranteed a livable wage.

Hopefully this victory, continued community pressure and education will help in the campaign to win livable workers for the Burlington food service workers and maintenance workers who are still in negotiations fighting for a livable wage.

Read the Report on-line  
Burlington Free Press Article
WCAX Story

PRESS RELEASE

PRESS CONFERENCE MONDAY, JUNE 25^TH AT 11AM, H.O. WHEELER SCHOOL, BURLINGTON.

Community Leaders call on Burlington School Board to Pay Livable Wages to Address Poverty and Gender Wage Gap in City

On Monday, June 25^th, at 11am, Burlington area community leaders will hold a press conference at H.O. Wheeler School to call on the Burlington school board to adopt livable wages for all school workers in the district.  A cross section of community, faith and political leaders will release a White Paper entitled “A Report on Livable Wages in Burlington Schools: How to Address Poverty in Our Community & Reverse Gender Wage Inequity,” asserting that raising wages to a livable level will address poverty as part of the larger community dialogue on socio-economic integration of Burlington schools. The Report underscores that raising wages will also address the gender wage gap between municipal workers (73% men) and school support staff workers (80%+ are women) and the gender gap within schools between maintenance workers (94% are men) and paraeducators and food service workers (83% are women and 94% are women respectively).

The press conference will be led by former State Senator Janet Munt and current State Representative Chris Pearson. They will be joined by several other leaders from faith communities, businesses, labor organizations and civic boards who have endorsed the White Paper, which includes figures and facts relating to school support staff wages, the gap between current wages and livable wages, the gender wage gap, and the estimated cost of increasing wages to taxpayers based on income and homestead value.

 The Burlington School Board is scheduled to meet at 3:00 PM at Hunt Middle School on Tuesday June 26^th to further consider the socio-economic integration issues for schools currently under discussion. Community leaders are urging the school board to see livable wages as a central part in addressing socio-economic gaps within the community.

 Leaders are also encouraging the school board to adopt livable wages within the current contract negotiations under way with paraeducators, food service workers and maintenance workers. Currently the paraeducators and food service workers have contracts with minimum wages beginning at $9.54/hour and $8.50/hour (respectively). These contracts are set to expire on June 30^th.  Food service workers also have no health or dental insurance.  The 2007 livable wage for an urban area for a single person with no children is $13.94/hour (assumes employer provides health insurance).

 The campaign to increase school support staff workers’ wages to a livable wage has been part of a larger community effort by the Burlington Livable City Coalition, a group of community organizations and unions dedicated to making the City of Burlington economically “livable” for all citizens. The Burlington Livable City Coalition has been lead by the Peace & Justice Center’s Vermont Livable Wage Campaign and the Vermont Workers’ Center.

 For more information:  Serena Chaudhry, Peace & Justice Center, Vermont Livable Wage Campaign, 802-863-2345 x8 or livablewage@pjcvt.org or James Haslam, Vermont Workers’ Center, 802-272-0882 or james@workerscenter.org.

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CURRENT STATUS (6.1.07)
Burlington school support staff workers need your help in the remaining two weeks before the last school board meeting of the school year! After nearly three years of working to convince the school district to adopt livable wages, the support staff (paraeducators, food service workers and maintenance workers) are calling on the Burlington community to make livable wages a priority.

With the recent discussions of school socio-economic integration in Burlington, it is important not to forget that the school district is also an employer.

Paying poverty wages contributes to the presence of poverty in the school district.  64% of paraeducators live in Burlington and many have children who attend Burlington schools.

Now is the time for the community to stand up and demand the school board adopt livable wages for all school workers.

Click here to take action or sign an on-line petition today!


BRIEF BACKGROUND

• Currently, there are many instructional assistant and paraeducators, custodians and food service workers who are paid poverty level wages in the Burlington Schools.  No worker should earn less than a livable wage, especially not the people who make our schools run, and as is the case of paraeducators and many school support staff, play a critical role in the education of our youth.
   
• The time is now:  For the last several years there has been a strong push to have the Burlington Schools join the City of Burlington and make it a policy that no employee should be paid less than a livable wage.  Last year, the Burlington School Board voted 5-7 against adopting a livable wage policy.  At that time several leaders of the School Board who voted against establishing a livable wage policy said they supported livable wages, but they thought it should wait until this year when the contracts for all of the low-paid support staff were to be negotiated. Now is the time to stop poverty wages in our schools.
   
• With the campaign to establish Socio-Economic Integration in our elementary schools, the Burlington School Board has initiated a very important community-wide discussion about the impacts of poverty on students and basic principles of social equity.  Yet at this same time, they continue to pay many of its own staff poverty wages.  The reason that there is a growing number of children coming from families living in poverty is because a growing number of the jobs available pay poverty wages.  Burlington Schools should immediately stop being one of these poverty-wage employers and help set a standard for other area employers so fewer families are living in poverty. 
   
• In the Equity & Excellence presentation at the May 8th School Board Meeting and available on their website, Superintendent Jeannie Collins states that we should celebrate our diversities, including our socio-economic diversity. While it is, of course, critical for us to celebrate and respect the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity in our communities, poverty is not something to be celebrated, but eliminated.  Burlington Schools needs start being a leader to eliminate poverty by stopping pay poverty wages.

Read more details about the struggle.

TALKING POINTS

1. FAIRNESS: The next Burlington Superintendent needs to reflect our community values. Paying school workers a fair and livable wage is essential. The City of Burlington passed a Livable Wage Ordinance for all municipal workers in 2001. We cannot continue to have a two-tier system in the City where school workers earn poverty wages while municipal workers are guaranteed a livable wage. The school board should hire a superintendent who is committed to paying fair wages to all school workers.
    

2. SCHOOL BOARD PRIORITIES: The School Board listed increasing wages for the school’s lowest paid workers as a priority for this school year during your August retreat. The three lowest paid occupations in the schools are food service workers, maintenance workers and paraeducators. The School Board should make this priority a reality and ask candidates for the superintendent position where they stand in principle on paying livable wages to school workers.
    

3. WOMEN & WAGES: Traditionally more women tend to fill paraeducator positions than men. In Burlington, of the 664 total municipal workers 73% are men. The City Livable Wage Ordinance increased the City’s lowest paid positions to a livable wage level in 2001. These positions are primarily meter readers and city parking garage attendants. 82% of all Burlington paraeducators are women. Virtually no paraeducator makes a livable wage ($12.02/hour (2005 LW figure). Only 11% of all paraeducators make above a livable wage.  The school board should correct the gender gap between municipal and school workers and hire a superintendent who is publicly committed to gender equity.

BURLINGTON SCHOOL BOARD VOTES "NO" ON LIVABLE WAGE RESOLUTION!

On November 8th,2005 the Burlington school board voted down the livable wage resolution (7 to 5) to philosophically commit to paying all school workers a livable wage. In August the school board set "increasing the wages of the lowest paid school workers" as a priority for 2006 yet the board refused to pass a formal statement of values on livable wage. More than 50 community members, parents, paraeducators, school cafeteria workers, and local leaders testified in support of the resolution.

 
Background

In the spring of 2004, paraeducators in the Burlington public schools began a livable wage campaign to bring all the wages of paraeducators up to a livable level as determined by the Vermont Joint Fiscal Office (JFO). Currently, the livable wage for a single person with no children is $12.02/hour ($25,000/annual) in an urban area. Currently all municipal workers for the City of Burlington earn the livable wage as calculated by the JFO as mandated by a city livable wage ordinance. School workers are not covered by this ordinance.

During the 2004-5 academic year, the Burlington Paraeducator Livable Wage Campaign has organized several paraeducators to speak to the Burlington School Board during the public comment period to educate school board members on their important work in the schools and their wage/compensation levels. This spring the Campaign has expanded its efforts to begin educating the community on the importance of paying school workers a livable wage.

On May 10th over 20 community supporters gathered for a "honk and wave" prior to the May school board meeting. Many of these supporters then testified during the public comment period in support of livable wages for all school workers. The school board held a preliminary discussion of the issue at its May finance committee meeting.

On June 14th another 20 community members, state representatives, school parents, and paraeducators gathered for another "honk and wave" to continue to put pressure on the school board prior to their June meeting. Several community members spoke in support of paying paraeducators a livable wage including two parents of special needs children who work one-on-one with paraeducators, two local faith leaders, a city council member, and a state representative from Burlington.

(Left) Paraeducators from Edmunds Elementary and Middle School with VLWC Director, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, after the June school board meeting.

On November 8th, the Burlington school board voted down the livable wage resolution (7 to 5) to philosophically commit to paying all school workers a livable wage. In August the school board set "increasing the wages of the lowest paid school workers" as a priority for 2006 yet the board refused to pass a formal statement of values on livable wage. More than 50 community members, parents, paraeducators, school cafeteria workers, and local leaders testified in support of the resolution.

In 2006, the school board started to focus on teacher contract negotiations and preparing for negotiations with paraedcuators in the fall of 2006. The Burlington Livable Wage Campaign decided to diversify our work and include ALL school support staff who were making less than a livable wage. We expanded to include food service workers and the few custodian workers who make slightly less than a livable wage.

In early 2006, focused its efforts from January to March on passing the Burlington School Budget. The main objective was to maintain quality schools and quality staff for our schools. The 2007 school budget did not include livable wages for all school staff and it also contained other problems due to level funding and cut backs. However, we are pleased that Burlington voters supported the budget. Since the budget has passed this year, it is more likely the community will support a slightly larger budget next year that will include livable wages for all school support staff. We designed and distributed to voters in several Wards in Burlington.

We also conducted a livable wage survey for all city candidates to ask how all candidates for local leadership felt about supporting livable wages for all city workers of Burlington. Read the 2006 survey results.

Over the fall and winter of 2006-2007, the campaign has built a stronger coalition with other local unions and workers to form the Burlington Livable City Coalition. Learn more about the coalitions work! (check back soon for more details).

 

How many Burlington Paraeducators Fall Below the Poverty Line?
 

*Source: Federal Register, Vol. 70, No. 33, Feb 18, 2005, pp. 8373-8375.

How many Burlington Paraeducators are City Taxpayers?      

How many Burlington Paraeducators Qualify for Vermont Public Assistance Programs?

Sources: Based on statistics for a three person family from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Vermont Agency of Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Health and Dental Insurance:

All paraeducators who make 30 or more hours receive dental insurance fully paid by the school district after two years of service with the district. For employees who qualify for health insurance, they must wait 45 days before they are covered.

• Of the 288 total support staff workers, 129 (45%) receive no health or dental insurance.

• Of the 288 total support staff workers, 52 (18%) have health insurance and no dental insurance. 1 has dental insurance and no health insurance.

• Health insurance contributions vary greatly for those workers with insurance. Of 159 workers who receive health insurance, 35 receive $1300 or less in health care contributions. 24 receive between $1301 and $4,999. And 100 receive $5,000+ in health care contributions.

• Paraeducators: 75 (40%) have no health or dental insurance. Food Staff: 52 (96%) have no health or dental insurance. Maintenance: 2 (4%) have no health or dental insurance.
   

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