Labor Negotiations Update

This page is designed to provide our staff and community with information, resources, and progress reports relevant to current labor negotiations that are taking place between the Hayward Unified School District and the Hayward Education Association (HEA). Please check back often for updates.

November 2019: Negotiations Update #4

California has the fifth largest economy in the world, yet our state ranks near the bottom in most measures of school funding and staffing. Additionally, the needs of our district continue to increase while a decline in enrollment places significant constraints on our budget. It is within this challenging budgetary context that HUSD continues to negotiate in good faith with its four employee bargaining units: Hayward Education Association (HEA), Association of Educational Office and Technical Employees (AEOTE), Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Safeco/M&O, and SEIU Para-YEP.

The teachers, paraeducators, custodians, and school staff that support our students are vital to the development of the academic and social-emotional growth of our students. HUSD values its employees and has invested in the retention of staff. We are proud to offer one of the highest salaries in the county for mid-career teachers and to have more than half of our teachers earning over $100,000 per year.

Despite our efforts, California’s funding reality means that HUSD’s current needs exceed the district’s allotted funding. We look forward to continued conversations with our bargaining units and seek to work collaboratively in support of our students and families. Click to the right to download the disrict's budget update.

Future Meeting Dates

HEA: November 15, 21, and 22

AEOTE: November 15, December 09 and 13

SEIU: November 22, December 10 and 11

September 2019: Negotiations Update #3

Background

As we prepare to implement the district’s three-year, community-driven plan, we are mindful of the needs our community has clearly indicated they want to see addressed. HUSD seeks to utilize its resources to prioritize building capacity within our district to address important issues, such as equity, in an intentional and meaningful way. We recognize that these important issues have to be addressed together and will require focused, collaborative time in order to have the impact intended by the community’s three-year strategic plan.

Achieving our goals will require a delicate balance given our fiscal reality. For the current fiscal year, HUSD has a reserve that will sufficiently cover the district’s costs. However, it’s important to remember that reserve funds are one-time funds that will not be replenished. Despite our continued outreach efforts, demographic data shows that our enrollment figures will continue to trend down for reasons beyond our control, including the departure of families who are unable to afford high housing costs in the Bay Area. Our revenue streams are also shifting as state support of public education remains low compared to other states.

Despite our fiscal challenges,which mirror those facing school districts across the state, HUSD has prioritized the retention of staff with salary increases totaling 22.1% over the last five school years. Our staff work hard to meet the needs of our students and we have sought to provide a compensation package that recruits and retains highly qualified staff.

Important Progress

The negotiation process is not only an opportunity to discuss compensation, but also allows us to review how we are educating our students and supporting our families. In previous negotiation sessions, the teams have addressed K-3 class sizes. As a result, class size limits have decreased—from 32 students per class in 2014-15 to 26 students per class in the current school year. That number will decrease to 25 in the 2020-21 school year.

We have also worked with our labor partners to minimize the number of K-6 combination classes in our schools. In 2011-12, HUSD had 114 combination classes and that number has dropped to 34 in the current school year.

The district looks forward to continuing our conversations with all of our labor partners as we collaborate towards the goal of reaching fair and fiscally responsible successor agreements. Our focus is on working together to make our vision for HUSD schools a reality.

June 2019: Negotiations Update #2

The Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) is committed to providing regular communication regarding labor negotiations with our labor partners. The district’s negotiations team and the Hayward Education Association’s (HEA) negotiations team have met for negotiations sessions on three occasions for a total of approximately 15 hours. Those dates are as follows:

May 28, 2019
June 4, 2019
June 14, 2019

The teams have been exchanging proposals related to five different articles.The next session is scheduled for a full day of negotiations on July 16.

The district also has a negotiations team meeting with the Association of Educational Office and Technical Employees’ (AEOTE) negotiations team. The teams have met for mostly full-day sessions on the following days:

May 3, 2019
May 10, 2019
May 23, 2019
May 24, 2019
May 29, 2019
June 3, 2019

The teams have exchanged proposals regarding a total of 16 articles. The next sessions are scheduled for June 20, June 27, June 28, and July 9.

We look forward to our continued conversations with HEA and AEOTE as we collaborate towards our goal of reaching fair and fiscally responsible successor agreements.

May 2019: Negotiations Update #1

The Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) is entering into collective bargaining with its four employee bargaining units: Hayward Education Association (HEA), Association of Educational Office and Technical Employees (AEOTE), Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Safeco/M&O, and SEIU Para-YEP. The collective bargaining process allows public school employees to bargain with their school district regarding salary, benefits, and other employment-related issues. Each contract is negotiated separately with the bargaining unit’s respective negotiating team. HUSD, HEA, and AEOTE held public hearings on their initial proposals at the March 27, 2019 school board meeting.

On Tuesday, May 28, HUSD and HEA initiated bargaining. HUSD has also met regularly with AEOTE since May 3, 2019. Unlike annual reopener negotiations for which the parties open one to two articles each, successor agreements tend to be three-year agreements that allow more articles to be open for negotiations. For this reason, the negotiations process is expected to extend over a longer period of time than in previous years.

HUSD’s Goals

At HUSD we put students and families first. We understand that to better serve our students we need to support the staff who directly serve them. We have the utmost respect for our colleagues who work in our schools, classrooms, and offices. During bargaining, our goal is to demonstrate our commitment to support staff and help them meet our students’ needs while remaining fiscally responsible.

Over the past five years, HUSD has increased salaries by 22.1%, and has maintained the second highest salary for mid-career teachers in Alameda county. We have done this despite the larger funding issues facing school districts across the country because our priority is to recruit and retain high quality staff. California ranks 41st in per student spending and our students and staff deserve a greater commitment to our schools.

In addition to increasing staff salaries, we have also shown our commitment to students, teachers, and school staff by reaching agreement with our labor partners on issues such as lowering the K-3 average class size and providing employee dental benefits.

Bargaining Overview

The present, three-year collective bargaining agreements between HUSD and HEA, AEOTE, SEIU Safeco/M&O, and SEIU Para-YEP expire on June 30, 2019. In 2016, HUSD's proposal included opening the HEA contract in its entirety. This year, HUSD is taking the same approach of opening the contracts in their entirety to allow maximum flexibility should contract language modifications impact more than one article.

Current Status of Negotiations

Negotiations between HUSD and HEA and HUSD and AEOTE will continue with scheduled dates into the month of July. We expect to set similar meeting dates with the SEIU negotiating teams. HUSD looks forward to bringing to the negotiations table our intent to honor our workforce and create a better learning environment for students.

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Labor Negotiations Update

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