There are four different unions which represent the majority of the employees who work in the Wapato School District.  Each of those unions and the employees they represent are outlined in the “Wapato School District Employee Unions” section seen below.  The conditions and terms of employment, including wages and hours of employees represented by a union are outlined in what is called a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), commonly referred to as a contract.  In the Wapato School District Collective Bargaining Agreements have been negotiated and are in place for each of the four unions.  They can be found on the District’s website by following this link:  https://bit.ly/2OmqOZ5   The District has an obligation to routinely bargain, separately and in good faith, with each of the four unions to update or renew each of the existing Collective Bargaining Agreements. 

The Bargaining Process

The typical bargaining process involves a team of representatives from the District engaging in negotiations with a team of representatives from a union.  It routinely involves the bargaining teams scheduling multiple sessions to exchange and discuss proposals. The bargaining sessions often happen over a period of months.  The negotiation process is meant to be a rich, comprehensive discussion about those parts of the collective bargaining agreement being bargained.  Through the negotiation process the teams will come to terms on those parts of the collective bargaining agreement being discussed and that is what is termed a Tentative Agreement (TA).  The ultimate goal is to come to terms on a collective bargaining agreement that is fair, equitable and sustainable for all involved.  When the negotiations process is complete the new, proposed collective bargaining agreement is presented to the employees of the union that was involved in the bargaining for a ratification vote.  It takes a majority vote of those union employees who vote in order to ratify the contract.  Once the union membership ratify it, the proposal is then presented to the School Board of Directors for adoption.  It takes a majority vote of those School Board members voting to approve the adoption.  

Wages

More often than not, negotiations regarding wages for employees represented by each of the District’s unions take up the most time during the bargaining process.  The discussions about wages during bargaining sessions can become intense, passionate, and at times, heated.  The union bargaining team works to secure the highest possible wage for its membership while the District works to provide employees the highest possible wage but at the same time is insuring the financial decisions it makes in the short term are sustainable in the long term.  The last thing the District wants to do is agree to a wage increase that is clearly not sustainable and would eventually result in the District having to lay employees off. The already complex process of negotiating wages has become even more convoluted and complicated due to significant education funding reforms adopted by the State the past couple of years.  The reforms have, at times, resulted in misinterpretation, confusion and misunderstanding as they relate to teacher pay and that lack of clarity has been apparent during the current negotiations the District is involved in with its teachers union. While the State reforms do make more money available for certificated teacher wages they also eliminate a commonly used State salary schedule that helped guide wage negotiations between unions and schools districts across the state for decades.  It is being left up to the District’s and unions to negotiate their own salary schedules with minimal State guidance. That change alone has resulted in some interesting and difficult discussions between the bargaining teams during the current negotiations cycle.

Administrator Wages

Administrators in the Wapato School District are not represented by an organized labor union, therefore a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) does not exist between administrators and the District.  That in turn means administrators do not have the opportunity of negotiating conditions and terms of employment, wages and hours like each of the four employee unions referenced in the following document.  The administrator salary schedule, like the salary schedules in place for each of the District’s four unions, is intended to be competitive when compared to other school administrator salaries in the region.  Just like with the union salary schedules, there are step increases built into the District’s administrator schedule that employees earn based on years served, education and experience.  Any increase in wages above and beyond a step increase comes at the recommendation of the Superintendent to the Wapato School Board of Directors.  It is up to the School Board to approve increases to administrator wages, just like it is up to the School Board to approve collective bargaining agreements with each of the four organized labor unions in the District.