Page One

Backed by a crowd of some 40 sign-carrying union members, representatives of the Berkeley Unified School District’s custodians, maintenance and food service workers, and bus drivers told BUSD board members Wednesday night the district must change its stand on worker health care and salary needs in contract mediation talks scheduled to begin next week. 

“We are your infrastructure and your infrastructure is crumbling,” Stationary Engineers Local 39 business agent Stephanie Allen said. 

Some 170 Local 39 members have been working without a contract since July 1. The Public Employment Relations Board declared contract negotiations at an impasse at the end of September, and mediation is scheduled to begin next week. 

The board meeting was held at Longfellow School after a faulty elevator caused the meeting to be moved from the Old City Hall. 

Allen and fellow union agent Lynn Long staged an indirect ad-hoc debate with board members during Wednesday’s regular board meeting, with Allen and Long leveling charges during public comment and board members answering during their report period. With one of the union representatives saying that the members “have to leave because they have to get up in the morning to work,” Local 39 members exited the meeting immediately following the business agents’ presentation, missing the board members’ responses. 

Long charged that when the contract ended on the first of July, the district unilaterally began charging union members with Kaiser health benefits a $50 per month fee for Kaiser’s Family Plan, the amount Kaiser had raised its fees on that date. Long said that prior to July, union members were not charged for health benefits by the district. She also charged that the district had floated a $300,000 interest-free loan to BUSD Superintendent Michele Lawrence in order to buy a house. 

“None of our union members have been offered loans to buy homes,” Long said, adding that on their current salaries, many of them were having trouble meeting their rent and health care payments and putting food on the table. Long told reporters earlier that Local 39 members have not had a raise in three years. 

One of the union members held up a sign reading “We Want To Buy A House Too.” 

Long criticized Lawrence for what she called “unilaterally” canceling negotiations with the union in July. 

But board member Terry Doran defended Lawrence, saying that “the board takes responsibility for the negotiations; the administration is acting at our direction.” Doran said that BUSD “is not in violation of our agreement with the union with regard to health benefits. We’re doing what the contract states. We have a bilateral agreement with the union, and we are honoring it.” 

Responding to a statement by Berkeley Council of Classified Employees president Ann Graybeal that “one of the members claim[s] that this is a pro-union board,” Board member Joaquin Rivera said, “I said this was a pro-union board, and I reiterate that this is a pro-union board. But it is also a fiscally responsible board, and we have to make sure our financial house is in order before we make other commitments.” 

Rivera said that that while he “completely understands” Long’s point about the health charges to the Local 39 employees, “we’re not going to be able to tackle health care problems at the district until we do major health care reform at the state and national levels.” 

Both Doran and Rivera expressed the belief that the problems with the union could be worked out in the upcoming negotiations. 

During her presentation, Allen criticized what she called the district’s “mismanagement” of its food service department. 

“At a recent public forum, Board Members [John] Selawsky and [Joaquin] Rivera defended [Food Service Director Karen] Candito and blamed the losses [of nearly $2 million] on her purchases of fresh food. If Candito is buying fresh food, she sure isn’t serving it to the majority of students who eat in the schools.” Allen passed out an elementary school lunch menu for the month of October which listed corndogs, pizza, hot dogs, pasta, chicken nuggets, and burritos among the offerings. 

Earlier this month, Candito and BUSD received a national food service award from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The committee cited BUSD’s vegetarian lunch and policy banning fried foods among its reasons for giving the district the award.›