TOTEM Negotiations Updates:
January 22nd, 2024
Your TOTEM Negotiations Team had a frustrating bargaining session with the district yesterday. The district's negotiations team still seems unwilling to make any significant counter proposals. They did offer an additional .25 cents year one and increased the % in year two & three from ½ % to 2% in Article 502 – Wage Schedule.
We expressed to them our disappointment and let them know that we feel that we are not being heard on important issues, such as wages, safety, and remote learning language. We ended the meeting having not come to an agreement on any articles.
Currently, we have not scheduled any further meetings with the district. We are hopeful that after reflection the district will come back to the table ready and willing to negotiate more collaboratively.
Diane Johnson
TOTEM Negotiations Team
West High, Activities Administrative Assistant
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January 11th, 2024
A productive time was spent on Thursday, January 11th between TOTEM and ASD. Articles that were discussed:
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Article 104.2: Bargaining Unit Orientation – this section was TA’d.
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Article 104.4: Information Requests – this section was TA’d.
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Article 302: Holidays – TOTEM offered a counter proposal adding Juneteenth; removing Indigenous People’s Day and removing Summer School language, as it belongs in Article 602.4
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Article 409.1: Short Term Unpaid Leave - added Cultural/Religious events into this section. This was TA’d.
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Article 502: Wage Schedule – ASD offered a counter proposal to their frozen scale of $1.00 per hour across the board year 1; a ½ percent year 2 & 3. There would be step movement each year.
TOTEM offered a counter for $7.00 year 1; 3% both year 2 & 3, with step movement year 1. Also, a 1.5% add ’l all (3) years for Step P, not just year 2 & 3.
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Article 610: Emergency Closure: TOTEM offered a counter proposal seeking to add language specific to remote learning days. Since this is a new area, we feel it needs to be addressed.
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Article 612: Safe Workplace – TOTEM offered a counter proposal.
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Article 614: Evaluations – this section was TA’d. Clarifies that evaluations need to be released to the employee by May 15 for school-based, and June 15 for twelve (12)
month employees. This gives the employee time to reflect on the evaluation prior to conference to have a more meaningful conversation with their Principal/Supervisor.
Our next negotiation session will be on January 22nd.
Amanda Marley,
TOTEM Negotiations Team
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December 21st, 2023
Today, December 21st, the ASD and TOTEM negotiators met. We have attached the District’s response to our proposals for you to review. Essentially, there are no proposals.
TOTEM chose not to respond and instead decided to draw the meeting to a close 30 minutes after we met. We are very disappointed to see that the District does not respect and value the members of TOTEM and their work by being unwilling to show any movement towards compromise.
As seen in section 502, the District proposed no increase in wages and they would like to take away the 2% increase the TOTEM Highly Qualified employees are currently receiving.
Our team continues to hope for better results and plans to continue to work for better wages and more respect for our members. We will send out a survey shortly to gather more information to continue the fight. We are asking you all take a few moments to provide feedback.
In Solidarity,
Richara Binion,
TOTEM Negotiations Team
December 14th, 2023
The Anchorage School District (ASD) and the TOTEM Association Negotiation Teams met on Thursday, December 14th, at the TOTEM office for the second round of negotiations.
We had to review TOTEM proposals again because some ASD team members were not at the last meeting, which took over an hour. ASD countered with non-money changes to the proposed contract (409.1; 610; 614). TOTEM offered a counterproposal on the First Aid/CPR language (107.2), added language for payment when taking classes outside their scheduled workday.
The TOTEM team was disappointed with the counterproposals. The following two proposals stand out:
The first was Emergency Closure (610), where ASD counter-proposed removing language to let employees work remotely on snow and remote learning days. Employees would have to report to their building, take leave, or leave without pay. This would be taking us back to where there were no choices.
Also, the ASD team didn't again propose any wage increases, which was disappointing since TOTEM proposed pay increases on Tuesday, December 5th.
ASD needs to be more creative to help solve the TOTEM hiring backlog and make TOTEM members' lives a little easier. We are hopeful that we will make some progress in our next meeting. ASD and TOTEM's meeting is on Thursday, December 21st, at the Education Center. After the meeting, the teams will take a break until January.
Richard Geiger,
TOTEM Negotiations Team
MEET YOUR NEGOTIATIONS TEAM
Negotiations Q&A Zoom
An informational Zoom about the Negotiations Process for members of TOTEM and ACE was held Oct. 12th. This Zoom held information about the process only and was not to discuss details about TOTEM Negotiations.
If you were unable to attend, please click here to watch.
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