The support staff – bus drivers, custodians, educational technicians, food-service workers and secretaries – at three local schools have unionized.
The support staff at Great Salt Bay Community School, Nobleboro Central School and South Bristol School voted to organize this spring, Central Lincoln County School System Superintendent Steve Bailey said.
The school system recently began negotiations with the support staff of each school. Bailey said he thinks it will “take some time” to develop an initial contract.
“It’s a reality,” Bailey said of the decision to unionize. “They have the ability, the authority to do this, and it’s something we have to respond to because they have organized.”
“I think there has been some talk like this over the years,” Bailey said.
The same structure for support staff pay and benefits has been in place since around 2000 or 2001, and Bailey thinks the support staff “wanted to have a little more say or influence into what was included in those wages and guidelines.”
“At the same time, we feel like we have been fair and responsive to the needs of the support staff” in all of the schools, Bailey said.
The school system feels “like we have very strong working relationships and good working conditions for the people that have been supporting each of the schools throughout the AOS,” Bailey said.
A collective-bargaining agreement with the support staff would address wages, benefits and working conditions, Bailey said.
The agreement would not include the bus drivers at Nobleboro and South Bristol, as those schools contract a private corporation, First Student Inc., to provide bus transportation.
The support staff at the schools belong to individual bargaining units, but have one bargaining agent, the Central Lincoln County Education Association Support Staff, Bailey said. The new association is an affiliate of the Maine Education Association and the National Education Association.
Marilee Harris is the president of the Central Lincoln County Education Association Support Staff. Harris is in her third year as an Educational Technician II in the resource room at Great Salt Bay Community School.
The association wants a “living wage,” job security, affordable health insurance and “procedures that are fair and that are applied fairly,” Harris said. The association wants to make sure all employees “are well-trained and are trained on an ongoing basis, regardless of what position they’re in,” Harris said.
The association also hopes to establish a system-wide wage scale and regulate hours and working conditions, she said.
Administrators and school boards change, and a collective-bargaining agreement will maintain consistency for the support staff regardless of who serves in those positions, Harris said.
The Central Lincoln County School System, also known as Alternative Organizational Structure 93, serves the towns of Bremen, Bristol, Damariscotta, Jefferson, Newcastle, Nobleboro and South Bristol.
The school system includes five elementary schools: Bristol Consolidated School, Great Salt Bay Community School, Jefferson Village School, Nobleboro Central School and South Bristol School.
The Bristol Consolidated School voted against unionizing, Bailey said. The Jefferson Village School support staff already belong to a separate union, Jefferson Support Staff, and have since Jefferson joined the school system in 2009.
