‘None of it was really about money.’ LPVEC educators unionize

Date: 6/15/2023

In an effort to receive fair discipline and treatment, educators at the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative have organized a union and are negotiating their first contract.

The LPVEC, located in West Springfield, is a partnership of five municipal school departments and two regional districts — Agawam, East Longmeadow, Hampden-Wilbraham, Longmeadow, Ludlow, Southwick-Tolland-Granville and West Springfield. The collaborative provides member districts with services, including school transportation and shared programs, such as special education and career technical education. LPVEC is operated by a board of directors.

“I don’t think [establishing a union is] going to affect the member districts,” Strout said, although he acknowledged there is a chance that LPVEC will ask member districts for more money.

Strout said he had originally discussed unionizing with other teachers in January 2019, but there was a low amount of support at that time. By March 2020, however, an educator came to him and shared that he wanted to unionize. From there, Strout reached out to the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association. The union became official at the end of September 2022, he said.

When the petition to create the union was circulating, Strout said “comments” were made in an effort to dissuade people from signing. When the MTA warned them that such behavior may run afoul of laws regarding workers’ rights to unionize, Strout said, LPVEC ended attempts to discourage people from signing. Despite this, he said, all but one of the more than 80 staff members signed the petition.

“None of it was really about money,” Strout said. “We are not treated the same as other districts,” He noted that the educators are considered at-will employees and there is no contract. He said educators are often pulled from classes and told to do things outside of their job description. For example, Strout said one educator is often unable to teach his morning culinary class because he is instructed to prepare lunch for students.

“We’re not treated like professionals. We’re treated like children,” Strout said. He recalled that during the coronavirus pandemic, when schools were remote, educators were required to teach from the building, despite there being no students physically present. “They said, ‘We won’t know if you’re actually teaching’” from home, Strout recalled.

Discipline is also an issue for teachers and staff. Strout said teachers are regularly suspended without pay, even when there is no proof of an infraction. In one instance, he said an educator joked that the collaborative was “upside down,” and turned a sign over. The person was told that they had damaged property and was suspended.

Strout said that during the 2022- 2023 school year, LPVEC lost 18 staff members. “They said there were a lot of retirements ... there are only two true retirements,” he said adding that other staff “just left” because they were “tired of it.”

Strout said that he and other educators decided to create a union rather than leave LPVEC because “the staff like the kids. We knew that if we left, nothing would change and the only people who would be hurt are the students.”

The union has the same structure as many other educator unions, with unit A for teachers and unit B for classroom assistants. Organizing for unit B is underway, Strout said. He said dues have not yet been established and aside from national and state level dues, the LPVEC Educators Union has complete discretion in setting dues.

The LPVEC Educators Union begin negotiating its first contract in January. Strout said, “We’ve gotten pushback on pretty much everything we’ve asked for,” including “just cause” firing, which requires an employer have verifiable proof of misconduct or other valid reasons. It protects employees from arbitrary termination.

If a contract cannot be agreed upon, Strout assured that the educators will not strike. Instead, he said they will likely engage in “work to rule,” in which teachers only work during school hours and will not accept stipends for any extracurricular duties. For example, Strout said, teachers would not correct assignments at home as they commonly do now. He said this is the “worst case scenario” because the students would be the ones hurt by it.

Strout said he is hopeful bargaining will go smoother with the new executive director, Alvin Morton. During executive director interviews, Strout said Morton, who has been the interim superintendent of Chicopee Public Schools, seemed to be more “teacher friendly” that outgoing Executive Director Roland Joyal.
Jefferey Laing, chair of the collaborative’s board of directors, did not respond to request for comment by press time.