Oshkosh Professionals Rally for a Living Wage

Grace Strum, a member of the Oshkosh Paraprofessional Education Association executive committee and bargaining team, discusses the need to improve wages for education support professionals. She is joined by Winnebagoland UniServ Director Richard Kern at a "Living Wage Wing Ding" in Oshkosh. They are wearing T-shirts that say “got living wage?”

Oshkosh Paraprofessional Education Association (OPEA) President Lynn Binder's recent exchange with a member of the Oshkosh Area School Board illustrates how much and for how long she and her fellow OPEA members have been underpaid.

"The board president said to me, 'You want a 50% pay increase?' " Bender said. "I told him, 'We want a wage that will allow us to support our families.' "

Such a simple truth illustrates that we live in a world that takes injustice for granted, but Binder and the OPEA are organizing to change that world. If they are successful, everyone in Oshkosh will benefit.

Paraprofessionals are vital to the education of children in every great school in Wisconsin, yet wages for these jobs are often so low that the skilled professionals who hold them cannot afford to keep them and stay out of poverty.

Binder and more than 70 OPEA members participated in the Living Wage Wing Ding in Oshkosh October 9 to organize around the living wage issue. Joining them were staff from the Winnebagoland UniServ, WEAC Collective Bargaining Director Mike McNett, WEAC Education Support Professional (ESP) Coordinator Fran McNett, and members of the Winnebagoland organized labor community. The Wing Ding consisted of living wage background information, small table discussions, and viewing a video made by an Education Support Professional group in Ithaca, New York, that successfully negotiated a 50% to 60% wage increase.

There was also a humorous skit to demonstrate the difficulty of negotiating with an intractable board, and a rousing labor fight song set to the tune of the famous "Chicken Dance":

"We're ready for a fight,
"Living wage: a right,
"Kids are our light,
"DON'T BE SO TIGHT."

The usual definition of a living wage is the income and resources needed for a family of four to adequately meet basic needs without public or private assistance. Living wage figures vary by family size and the cost of living where a wage earner resides, but $11.31 per hour, or 130% of the 2002 poverty guidelines determined by the federal government, is the wage at which a family of four is no longer eligible for food stamps.

Many education support professionals working in schools throughout Wisconsin do not earn a living wage, and this is a situation WEAC, the NEA and local Education Support Professional associations are determined to change. The union is placing a high priority on gaining respect - and respectful wages - for ESP.

As part of that effort, the WEAC Statewide Bargaining Goals Committee recommended and the WEAC Board of Directors adopted a new set of bargaining goals for ESP that includes negotiating a living wage as a minimum starting salary, as well as pay raises that at least meet the cost of living, with no givebacks in benefits.

McNett told Wing Ding participants about the organizing and bargaining process that lay ahead for OPEA. School districts can afford to pay wages that allow paraprofessionals to work without living in poverty, McNett said, but they often will not do so unless they are compelled to at the bargaining table and through public pressure.

"If your demands are reasonable and the school board can afford it, do you think they will give it to you without a fight?" McNett said. "You have them outnumbered. You have more and better connections with the people who live near you. You have a significant amount of power as an individual in your community and an almost infinite amount of power when you join together."

Posted October 17, 2003