Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Friday, December 17, 2010

OEA President speaks at Ogden School Board Meeting

OEA President, Doug Stephens, spoke to the Ogden School Board last evening on behalf of the over 500 members of OEA who support the reinstatement of steps on the salary schedule. Ogden is only one of two districts that has frozen steps for two consecutive years (Provo is the other one) and our negotiations have been at impasse for several months. He was joined by Michelle Braeden, teacher from OHS, who spoke sincerely about the need to retain and recruit the best teachers to the district. Doug also delivered almost 700 signature of teachers and employees supporting the reinstatement of steps. Our negotiations teams will meet Monday to continue mediation with Lynn Trenbeath, our mediator. The school board also met in executive session last night to discuss negotiations.

Our meeting with legislators went well last night. Attending were the following legislators: Brad Dee (House Dist 11 and House Majority Leader), Scott Jenkins (Senate Dist. 20 and Senate Majority Leader), Richard Greenwood (House Dist. 12), newly elected Jeremy Peterson (House Dist. 9), Brad Galvez (House Dist. 6) and Dixon Pitcher (House Dist 10). Leaders from both OEA and WEA were also in attendance. We shared our Taxation, Economic Investment and Funding for Public Education DVD and discussed the upcoming session.

Rick