If this week of school openings and classes go smoothly, the government is ready to sit back down at the table with American Federation of Teachers leadership to negotiate a counteroffer for wage increases, Gov. Kenneth Mapp said Monday.
At a news conference on St. Thomas called to update on the status of public schools, the governor explained that when he came into office in 2015, AFT and Education Administrators Association officials had outlined four major issues, of which three have been resolved.
First, an outstanding payment owed to the unions from a year missed under raises negotiated in 2010, second a base raise increase, followed by a resolution to the eight percent pay cut taken out of government employees’ checks during austerity measures implemented after the national economic recession.
Mapp said base pay for starting teachers has been raised across the board, the outstanding year of salaries paid and a bill to the Senate has been submitted to take care of the eight percent. The one outstanding issue is implementing the salaries needed to retain and attract qualified teachers and for that, Mapp said a proposal had been drafted, approved by union leadership, but rejected by its members, with no counterproposal offered.
In the meantime, a series of job actions on St. Croix prompted Mapp to say Monday that while the government has no problem coming back to the bargaining table, discussions with the unions are made more difficult if the government has to deal with the “chaos” of filling empty classrooms and finding things for students now back in school to do.
The job action prompted the government’s chief negotiator, Natalie Tang How, to walk out of a scheduled negotiation session Friday, claiming the union had instigated the teachers’ action. Union officials denied the charge. (See Related Links, below.)
At Monday’s news conference Mapp asked for all parties to cool down.
“I’m asking everyone to return to the table and to resume the process in a more orderly and less chaotic process and I’m convinced can reach a resolution with the AFT,” Mapp said . “If this week goes well, we can sit back down at the bargaining table next week.”
Mapp said concerns over long-term teachers making the same wage as teachers now entering the system are understandable, but incorrect. That “wage parity” is negotiated at the bargaining table and Mapp added that the government is working to negotiate across the board for workers, some of whom – like Corrections officers – haven’t seen a raise in more than a decade.
“At the end of the day, and I’m just being candid, the government of the Virgin Islands cannot afford to provide a $10,000 salary increase s across the board to every teacher,” he said, adding that there are approximately 1,600 to 1,700 educators in the system. “We just can’t.”
And, per the court ruling on the eight percent cut, the government is mandated not to negotiate wages increases it can’t afford, he said.
“We go through the process and ultimately it does not work and then either part would declare an impasse and go through the arbitration process,” Mapp explained. “We’re not seeking that, but we have to negotiate in good faith, and we have to negotiate in an environment that both sides can accept.”
Extending an olive branch, the governor added that he understands the need for competitive salaries. Last year, there were 152 vacant teaching positions within the Education Department and even with the authority to recruit teachers from the Philippines, the government still wasn’t able to bridge the gap.
Job fairs at the University of the Virgin Islands were unsuccessful and Mapp said that in asking graduates why they wouldn’t consider teaching at home, many explained that moving to the states and receiving high pay with a lower cost of living was more attractive.
“We are prepared to work the issue through to a solution – but in the negotiation is the give and take,” he said.
