On May 11th, the Caucus of Working Educators delivered a letter to Jerry Jordan asking for a minimum one-week reading period for any new contract offer.
The leadership did not respond to this request by the suggested deadline, so we've now gone public with our request for a reading period!
Sign here if you are a PFT member and want a reading period!
The day after our petition went public, The PFT made a post on their Facebook page with a partial explanation as to what kind of access members would have to a new contract offer.
We appreciate this response, especially the explanation about the voting process. However, we still ask for an actual reading period for our contract. Being able to ask questions and get an explanation is not enough, especially without any guaranteed time frame for this process. This describes what our last contract vote was like in 2009, which left many members feeling frustrated and misinformed.
To reiterate what we said in our earlier post:
The Caucus of Working Educators enthusiastically supports the PFT leadership in their ongoing contract negotiations, and are very much looking forward to a resolution to what has been a long and bitter struggle. To those ends, we want a contract ratification process that allows the general membership to feel confident in their vote.
This is not an abstract concern -- last year, the administrators in CASA pushed back against their own union leadership when the negotiating team presented a contract offer with limited information and a speedy schedule for a vote. The members voted "no" in part because they felt needlessly pressured by the CASA leadership to make a quick decision.
Rushing this process risks its success. To those ends, we have requested that the PFT leadership make a public commitment to a minimum one-week reading period as soon as possible.