{"id":20096,"date":"2022-06-01T03:51:38","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T07:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=20096"},"modified":"2022-06-01T03:51:38","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T07:51:38","slug":"brick-school-board-settles-negotiation-with-two-unions-agrees-on-salary-tweaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2022\/06\/brick-school-board-settles-negotiation-with-two-unions-agrees-on-salary-tweaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick School Board Settles Negotiation With Two Unions, Agrees on Salary Tweaks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brick<\/a>

Brick Township Board of Education\/Schools (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Brick school officials recently approved pacts with two of the labor unions that represent its employees, with the agreements having been unanimously adopted by the board at its May meeting.<\/p>\n

The most major negotiation was with the Transport Workers Union, which represents employees in several fields, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries, maintenance workers and custodial workers. As school districts across the nation have struggled to attract employees \u2013 especially bus drivers \u2013 most have increased salaries, which is reflected in the new, three-year TWU contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of people in that union making below minimum wage, and obviously that has come up,\u201d said Board President Stephanie Wohlrab. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do the typical contract in the first year. We looked at how we would go about increasing those starting salaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The salary for a bus driver in the Brick district will move from $17 per hour to $24 per hour. All employees received at least a $400 raise, with an employee\u2019s total increase being calculated by multiplying the number of years a person worked for the district by $20. For the second and third years of the contract, increases of 7 and 6.5 percent, respectively, were included.<\/p>\n

The creative method of determining salary increases during the first year was aimed at compensating long-term employees whose salaries remained low.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had people who were in the district for a very long time \u2013 people who have been here 40 years, 20 years \u2013 getting their first increase to the minimum,\u201d said Wohlrab, adding that Brick\u2019s new salary for drivers is not the highest in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite honestly, at the end of this, looking at the numbers, they are being paid like the professionals they are,\u201d she said. \u201cThis was a good and fair contract for all involved. It fixed a lot of years of staff members being underpaid, and it showed gratitude and appreciation for a group of individuals we could not function without. Without them, the district doesn\u2019t run.\u201d<\/p>\n

A smaller agreement was reached with the Brick Township Education Association, which represents the district\u2019s teaching staff and some support staff members. The sidebar agreement raised the salaries of occupational therapists and speech therapists during summer the summer when they continue to work. The salary will rise to $60 per hour from $49 per hour, but officials say the district will spend less under the new contract since employees will be hired directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, we\u2019re spending $75 an hour through an outside group that hires them for us, so that was a savings to the district,\u201d Wohlrab said.<\/p>\n

Teachers who take a summer position will see an increase starting in 2023, as well as aides, known as paraprofessionals. Teachers\u2019 salaries will move from $41 to $51 per hour, and paras will earn $21 per hour, from the previous $19.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just to stay competitive in the area,\u201d said Wohlrab.<\/p>\n

Another change to the teachers\u2019 contract would allow employees under the agreement to utilize the state employee health benefits plan rather than the district\u2019s plan, which can be more expensive.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brick school officials recently approved pacts with two of the labor unions that represent its employees, with the agreements having been unanimously adopted by the board at its May meeting. The most major negotiation was with the Transport Workers Union, which represents employees in several fields, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries, maintenance workers and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[41,24,1539,471,4484,1318],"class_list":["post-20096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-board-of-education","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-brick-township-education-association","tag-btea","tag-featured","tag-transport-workers-union"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/DSC_0004.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-5e8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}