After an effective bargaining session with the Leon County School District March 12, Leon Educational Staff Professional Association employees will be sharing a $675,000 salary increase package which amounts to a 2% raise.
“I have members that need that money right away. People that have been struggling to make rent, pay bills, we even have members that have had to move in with relatives to make ends meet,” LESPA President Valencia Hargrett told the Tallahassee Democrat. She is a paraprofessional at Sabal Palm Elementary School.
LESPA employees are paraprofessionals, teacher assistants, and other non-instructional or administrative school staff.
The tentative agreement between the district and its support staff comes days after the Leon Classroom Teachers Association agreed to a $2.3 million salary package, including five days of parental leave per employee, leave buy-back offerings and free before- and after-school care.
“It’s so nice when the work we do together supports our brothers and sisters and members,” LCTA President Scott Mazur wrote in a social media post. “It’s important to remember, because we organized, everyone benefited. LESPA supported us. LCTA supported them. Workers benefit! Families are better off! Our community is stronger!”
Aside from the LCTA’s salary package, LESPA employees will get access to the same benefits after the union ratifies the agreement and the school board signs off.
Florida is a “right to work” state, in part meaning eligible employees do not need to be dues paying members of a union to receive the benefits of successful union negotiations.
Teacher unions fretting future
Lawmakers recently passed legislation (SB 1296) that raises the threshold of required membership for unions to receive certification. Public sector unions will need at least 50% of public employees in a bargaining unit to vote in a union certification election, and then it needs 50% of those who vote to certify or recertify the union.
“We do not have the numbers, and we are nowhere near the numbers,” Hargrett said. The union has 20% of eligible employees in its membership.
“This definitely will hurt us. I would love for one of those lawmakers to sit in a classroom for one whole day,” Hargrett said.
Alaijah Cross covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at abrown@tallahassee.com.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon Schools support staff win raise as union faces membership hurdle
Reporting by Alaijah Cross, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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