{"id":86,"date":"2020-04-13T16:21:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T20:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/?p=86"},"modified":"2020-05-22T16:29:26","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T20:29:26","slug":"bargaining-press-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/2020\/04\/13\/bargaining-press-release\/","title":{"rendered":"Bargaining Press Release"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winslow Township School District Exploits Paraprofessionals\nthrough Private Contractor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contractor, ESS, and the\nSchool District both claim they are not accountable for Winslow\nparaprofessional wage increases and benefits<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winslow Township, NJ<\/strong> \u2013 The\nparaprofessionals who work for the Winslow Township School District organized a\nunion in the fall of 2019 because they are paid low wages, have no benefits,\nand are not treated with respect.  The Winslow\nTeacher Assistants, Non-Instructional Assistants, Bus Aides, and Before and\nAfter School Program Attendants work for a contractor named ESS Support\nServices.  The newly-organized\nparaprofessional union local has been in negotiations with the school district\ncontractor since October 2019, but both the contractor and the school district\ninsist that the other party is responsible for the paraprofessionals\u2019 wages and\nbenefits.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Winslow\nTownship School District contracted out its paraprofessionals approximately ten\nyears ago.  When they were privatized,\nthe staff immediately lost their benefits, pensions, paid time off, and their\nwages were slashed.  After ten years of\npoverty wages and no benefits, the paraprofessionals decided to organize a\nunion with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)\nlast year.  The paraprofessionals, who\nare now UE Local 119, have been in negotiations with the Winslow contractor for\nsix months.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 1st<\/sup>,\nthe paraprofessionals believed that they had finally come to a union contract\nsettlement with ESS.  However, the\ncontractor subsequently insisted that most of the financial agreements were\ndependent upon the Winslow School District providing the funding for the\nunion\u2019s contract with ESS.  Yet, at the\nsame time, the Winslow School District claims that it is not the employer of\nthe subcontracted paraprofessionals, and so it refuses to discuss negotiations\nwith the union.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winslow ESS Teacher\nAssistant and UE Local 119 bargaining committee member Sheila Wanzer said, \u201cESS and\nWinslow Township School District are partners in paying slave wages to their\nparaprofessionals.  They force the\nworkers into poverty and do everything to keep us in poverty.  The actions of ESS and the school district\ntowards the workers are shameful. \nWe work in the classrooms alongside Winslow teachers every day,\nbut we are treated like second class citizens. \nWe have no health insurance or paid time off, while the other school\nstaff have better pay and good benefits. \nWe work with students with disabilities and behavior disorders, and our\njobs can often be stressful and dangerous. \nThe buck passing between Winslow and ESS needs to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the UE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) is a national labor union with tens of thousands of members.  UE members work in a number of different industries, including manufacturing, machining, driving, service industries, and government.  UE Local 119 represents approximately 200 paraprofessionals working for ESS at the Winslow School District.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bargaining-Press-Release-1<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Winslow Township School District Exploits Paraprofessionals through Private Contractor The contractor, ESS, and the School District both claim they are not accountable for Winslow paraprofessional wage increases […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locals.ueunion.org\/119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}