frederic

Frederic teachers have begun a series of job actions aimed at their board's refusal to negotiate the 2003-05 contract. Teachers are working the contract by entering and leaving school as a group at the contractual time, and refusing to do voluntary duties and committee work outside the contract day. On February 4, teachers wore orange T-shirts with the message, "Got Contract?" The superintendent demanded that the teachers remove the shirts. After careful consideration, the Frederic unit director asked teachers to comply with this demand, but told the superintendent that they would be back with the T-shirts if contract negotiations don't pick up. (Northwest United Educators had not received a counter to its last proposal for over two months.)

On February 7, NUE UniServ Director Tim Schultz showed up in Frederic dressed with a blaze-orange shirt and gave each teacher an orange to place on his or her desk. The next day, NUE received a counter proposal from the board, but the counter was in the form of a "preliminary final offer," accompanied by a petition for arbitration, and threatened a Qualified Economic Offer if the teachers didn't accept this "final offer." The following day, the teachers met in force after school, dressed in their orange T-shirts, unanimously rejected the board's final offer, and voted to continue the job actions and wearing of the orange.

- Photo submitted by Tim Schultz

Posted February 11, 2005

Return to Share Your Photos Page