Hello UESF Siblings! Last Friday, Feb 3, UESF submitted a demand to bargain, known as a sunshine letter. We are including it here for all members to read. Our starting and ending point is the schools our students deserve. We know our students deserve educators in every classroom, educators who can afford to live in the communities where we teach. Our students deserve fully staffed schools with nurses, counselors, social workers, family liaisons, and community health workers and security guards ready to support them, their families, and fellow educators each and every day. After the challenges of the last two years, we and our students deserve a contract that meets the needs of our entire school community.
Yesterday, over 100 UESF members from 53 different schools or work sites came together at our first simultaneous regional Bargaining Team Meet and Greet. It was great to see educators engaged in discussions about how we will win our five platform demands: Raises, improved working conditions, fully staffed schools, student supports, and protections from poor management decisions.
The big bargaining team was generated by the over 65 sites that reached a super majority of surveys completed in October. The 70-member bargaining team has come together to develop the platform and train for bargaining. Now we are preparing for the work to develop and decide on proposals that reflect the priorities you all generated. The bargaining team has identified a communications team that will ensure members are made aware of progress and challenges as this struggle unfolds.
Our work at the bargaining table will always be in conjunction with all of our collective efforts to build solidarity amongst educators and make progress to win the best possible contract. So many site leaders have been diligently connecting across campuses and collecting your signatures to show wide-spread support for the platform. We look forward to seeing you all on Feb 21 when we present your signatures on the platform at the Board of Education—there will be no doubt then that we are all ready to fight for the best, for the raises and working conditions and protections we deserve, for the fully staffed and supported schools our students deserve. We are all in this struggle together, and I look forward to standing arm-in-arm with you as we fight.
