Letter: Mount Greylock Educators Want Current Contracts Honored
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To the Editor:
Educators from what will be a unified Mount Greylock Regional School District are demanding that the transition committee handling contract negotiations honor existing agreements until a new contract is settled, as well as establish a more realistic time frame for negotiating a regional agreement.
We are all in favor of creating a unified regional pre-K through-12 district, but not at the expense of cheating educators out of wages and benefits they have already negotiated. The transition committee’s tactics to expedite a complex process and deny educators what they are owed is clearly not in the spirit of regionalization.
In a show of solidarity, educators from Lanesborough, Williamstown and the regional high school will bring their concerns to the Mount Greylock Transition Committee when it meets at 6 p.m. Thursday night at the Mount Greylock Regional High School library.
Educators have made a good faith effort to fulfill the committee's plan to settle a new contract within six months of the start of bargaining, which began in January. Creating a whole new contract typically takes at least 12 months to 18 months. And until a new contract is in place, all existing contracts should stay in effect in their entirety.
And with dozens of their proposals having still gone unanswered by the committee, negotiators for the educators have agreed to enter into mediation with the school committee.
I am confident that we can come to an agreement that is fair and achieves the goals of creating a unified regional school district.
Marty Walter
Vice president of the Mount Greylock Educators Association
This was sent as a press release.
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