Newark Teachers Association

NTA

Full name	Newark Teachers Association
Founded	1969
Members	Approximately 400
Country	United States
Affiliation	CTA NEA
Key people	Chris Baugh, President
Office location	32980 Alvarado-Niles Rd. Suite 812, Union City, CA 94587
Website	[1]

Organized labour portal

The Newark Teachers Association (NTA), headquartered in Union City, California, is the trade union representing teachers and other certificated employees of the Newark Unified School District in Newark, California. The Association represents approximately 400 members. NTA is affiliated with the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the National Education Association (NEA).^[1] NTA was formed in 1969 when the teachers of Newark voted to leave the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and become a CTA affiliate.

Governance

The Newark Teachers Association is directly governed by two bodies, an executive board and a representative council.^[2]

Executive Board

The Executive Board is the chief governing body of the Association. The Board is responsible for the oversight and general functionality of the Association. It oversees and acts upon confidential matters, including the handling of a filed grievance. It also votes on whether or not to bring issues or other items to the Representative Council.^[2]

The Board is composed of a President, a Vice President, a Secretary, a Treasurer, a high school director, a junior high school director, two elementary school directors, an alternative education/special education director, a State Council representative, and a CTA field representative.^[2]

Members of the Executive Board, with the exception of the State Council representative and the CTA field representative, are elected annually through a series of voting meetings at individual school sites, or at an annual general meeting of the Association. The State Council representative is elected by the union to a three-year term while the CTA field representative is appointed by the California Teachers Association.

The 2008-2009 NTA Executive Board has the following members^[3]:

Chris Baugh, President
Bryan Blattel, Vice President
Dana Ratto, Secretary
Patrick Brose, Treasurer
Jacob Goldsmith, High School Director
Tracy Green, Junior High School Director
Sue Bohmann, Elementary Director
Sharon Blattel, Elementary Director
Shannon Johns, Alternative Education/Special Education Director
Bryan Blattel, State Council Representative
Phyllis Grenier, Past President
Theo Austin-Smyth, CTA Field Representative

Representative Council

The Representative Council consists of individual site representatives from each school. The number of representatives a site has on the Council is proportional to the number of represented union members at that site. According to the agreement between the Newark Unified School District and the Association, each site is entitled one site representative for every 25 union members represented. If a school has less than 25 members, one site representative may be elected from that school.^[2]

Collectively, the Council decides on non-confidential items that generally impact the entire Association. Such items typically include raising union dues, approving leaflets or flyers to be distributed to unit members, recommending changes in insurance, recommending approval or disapproval of contract agreements, and other items that require a vote of the entire membership of the Association.

This two-body governing system is similar to the bicameral legislature used by the United States Congress.

Representation problems

To date, the Newark Teachers Association is one of the only teacher associations in the nation where individual department chairpersons are not represented by the Association. The Association has tried to organize several times to incorporate department chairpersons into the Association, but all measures have failed since the incorporation of NTA into CTA.

This issue arose early in NTA's history. NTA was originally affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) but decided to ultimately join CTA. As a result, department chairpersons elected to remain with AFT and leave the Association via a grandfather clause for the main point that they were exempt from paying NTA/CTA/NEA dues. Since then, AFT ultimately removed itself from all Newark teachers and the department chairs have gone unrepresented since. NTA also attributes part of this problem to the fact that the American Federation of Teachers is AFL-CIO affiliated unlike the independent National Education Association.

Recent negotiations history

2005 contract negotiations

The issue of teachers' salaries was reopened by the Association in 2005, while the District decided to reopen class size. Teachers had initially asked for a 4.23 percent raise, equal to the state-allocated cost-of-living wage adjustment.^[4]

Negotiations reached an impasse in late August 2005, as the school district was not prepared to give teachers the raise they were asking for without the Association agreeing to raise class sizes. The previous agreement from 2004 had stated that total student contacts would not exceed 150 per day, which the District wanted to increase. The Association, which refused to agree to this at the time, had begun organizing and mobilizing for a potential strike as talks entered mediation. Shortly thereafter, the District claimed it had reworked its budget and was prepared to return to the bargaining table.^[4]

A tentative agreement on a multi-year contract good through 2007 was reached in late November between the parties, thus averting a strike. The Association agreed to accept an increase in the daily student contact limit from 150 to 155 in exchange for a maximum class size cap of 34 per individual class. Also, the District agreed to raise teacher salaries an average of 4.92 percent. The range in increases was from 0.35 percent to 10.13 percent because the parties had also agreed to restructure the system by which teachers are paid. 96 percent of the Association's membership approved the agreement.^[5]

2007 contract negotiations

In March 2007, the Newark Teachers Association and the Newark Unified School District began negotiations for a successor agreement to the expired 2005-2007 collective bargaining agreement. This marked the first time in three years that the entire contract, cover-to-cover, was reopened.

After several meetings between the parties, a tentative agreement was reached without impasse on September 13, 2007 which included a state allocated cost-of-living wage adjustment during each year of the agreement.^[6] Many articles of the agreement were also rewritten and reorganized. The agreement was ratified in October 2007 by a 97 percent approval vote of the NTA membership. The Newark Unified School District ratified the agreement on October 31, 2007 at a special meeting of the Board of Education.^[7]

The agreement, effective through 2010, marks one of the first times in a decade that an agreement was reached without any impasse or deadlock between the parties.^[8][9]

List of presidents

2002-2009 Phyllis Grenier
Beginning July 2009 Chris Baugh

References

1. ^ Linh Tat, Oakland Tribune, "Newark teachers' contract settled", 9 Dec 2005 (accessed 3 Dec 2007).
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Newark Teachers Association website: www.newarkta.org. (accessed 15 December 2007)
3. ^ Newark Teachers Association website: www.newarkta.org. (accessed 7 Aug 2008)
4. ^ ^{a b} Linh Tat, Oakland Tribune, "Newark teachers to vote on proposed contract", 28 Nov 2005 (accessed 3 Dec 2007).
5. ^ Newark Unified School District, "Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Education", 20 March 2007 (accessed 3 Dec 2007).
6. ^ Newark Teachers Association website: [www.newarkta.org]. (accessed 15 December 2007)
7. ^ Newark Unified School District, "Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Education", 2 Oct 2007 (accessed 3 Dec 2007).
8. ^ Todd R. Brown, Oakland Tribune, "Newark board to mull raises for teachers", 24 Oct 2007 (accessed 3 Dec 2007).
9. ^ Newark Unified School District, "Minutes of the Special Meeting of the Board of Education, 30 Oct 2007 (accessed 3 Dec 2007).