Low paid Croton-Harmon school workers, frustrated by lowball offers from district officials, may seek employment elsewhere
After a long meeting with school officials today, teacher's aides and lunch workers are dismayed that the district still does not want to pay what they consider a living wage.
After a long meeting with school officials today that reportedly produced minimal results, members of Aides of Croton United (ACU) seeking a new and fairer contract may end up seeking new jobs instead.
As we reported in April, the Croton-Harmon school district compensates its teacher’s aides and food service workers at a lower rate than most surrounding districts. It also saddles them with draconian employment conditions—such as no medical insurance, unpaid lunch breaks, and denying them the right to seek unemployment compensation during the summer—that make it even more difficult for them to survive financially.
The workers, along with sympathetic teachers, have often had to take up collections to help out colleagues who don’t have enough money to make it to the next paycheck. But when they repeatedly asked for help from district officials, the workers were told that they had to wait until the contract negotiations began, ACU president Jean (Giordano) Avolio told us last month.
Now, in the wake of today’s meeting, Avolio has decided to seek employment elsewhere after 18 years of service to the district, and she is advising her roughly 65 ACU colleagues to do the same.
District officials “are digging their heels in,” Avolio told the Chronicle. “It is not appropriate to present their offer to our members." Avolio added that the district “is not offering us a livable wage. The poverty level is about $35,000 per year and we are in the low 20’s.”
ACU members have received a lot of community support on local social media in their fight for better conditions, and they showed up in force at a recent Board of Education meeting to press their demands (see photo above.) But they feel their pleas are falling on deaf ears at district headquarters.
The school workers were particularly dismayed last week, when the district reportedly gave the Friday before Memorial Day weekend—a scheduled day off from school for students and teachers—as a day off also to custodians and clerical and building administrators, with pay. But the teacher’s aides and lunch workers were not paid for that day.
District officials have previously declined to comment on ongoing contract negotiations, but we have reached out to them again. While we did not receive responses by our deadline, we will update this story if they do get back to us later.
The next round of negotiations is on June 11. School workers are still hoping that between now and then the district will do a turnaround and treat them with the respect they feel they deserve.
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This is terrible! I may write my own letter to the district on their behalf. They are treated as second class citizens. I hope we don’t lose these dedicated aids and lunch workers. They are completely critical to the functioning of our schools and one would think the BOE and Administrators would push to make sure they had fair wages, the ability to collect unemployment, access to health insurance, paid days off and paid lunch time. It’s pretty ridiculous they don’t have these things. I hope to see a big change still for them. Please keep following their story and thank you for this update.