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Mt. Diablo, Calif., Teachers, District Strike Tentative Agreement

Posted on: Tuesday, 22 November 2005, 18:00 CST

By Denis Cuff, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Nov. 22--Negotiators for teachers and the Mt. Diablo Unified School District have agreed on a contract after a long and heated dispute over coverage of escalating health care costs.

The tentative pact, reached Friday and announced Monday, provides teachers an 8.7 percent salary hike over three years, plus two additional fixed-dollar payments to soften the pain of rising medical costs.

Teachers will vote Dec. 6 and Dec. 7 on a tentative deal. They have worked without a contract for more than a year.

Negotiations moved slowly, while teachers showed their impatience by picketing school board meetings, wearing black clothing and staging other protests such as withholding letters of recommendations for seniors.

"The membership is relieved to have something to vote on," teachers union president Mike Noce said Monday afternoon.

"I know you are as pleased as I am with this news," district Superintendent Gary McHenry said Monday in an e-mail to a parents advisory group. "I hope the spirit of this holiday season helps us recuperate from the difficulty of the last year. "

District spokeswoman Sue Berg said the district offered the fixed-dollar payments to provide some relief for health care payments.

Union members grumble they lost ground because of their 2000 agreement to exchange health insurance coverage for a lump sum salary hike, which has not kept up with medical costs.

"It's a step in the right direction," Noce said of the new contract.

The agreement also provides that district schools will take the entire Thanksgiving week off in 2006, in exchange for adding schooldays back elsewhere during the year.

Teachers at College Park High School in Pleasant Hill plan to continue withholding writing college recommendations for seniors until the new contact is ratified, said Andrew Nolan, an English teacher.

He said he was bitter the district did not settle earlier but added, "My initial reaction is the agreement is probably close to fair if it makes everyone feel unhappy."

The school board is expected to vote soon after teachers ratify the contract.

Selected elements of a tentative agreement between the Mt. Diablo school district and its teachers:

--3 percent salary increase retroactive to Jan. 1.

--2 percent salary increase retroactive to July 1.

--$376 to offset medical benefit cost increases, effective Jan. 1, 2006, and an additional $619 on Jan. 1, 2007.

--2 percent salary increase effective July 1, 2006.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

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