School District and MSEA back to bargaining table

MAT-SU — The Matanuska-Susitna Education Association and Mat-Su Borough School District’s bargaining teams met on Monday morning for the first time since the Aug. 26 impasse in contract negotiations. Mat-Su educators have been without an updated contract for more than 18 months, and took action last week when a strike vote took place among MSEA members.

“We’re hoping we get closer to a deal. We are continuing our discussions this week,” said MSEA President Dianne Shibe. “We’re going to continue discussions this week and I think both sides remain hopeful.”

MSEA bargaining team spokesman John Notestine and MSBSD Attorney Saul Friedman met on Monday to continue discussing a contract that could be ratified by MSEA voters and agreed upon by both MSEA and the school district.

After the Aug. 26 impasse, MSEA announced last week that it would conduct a vote of its membership whether or not to strike. In the middle of the open voting period, over a dozen educators flooded the Mat-Su Borough School District School Board public testimony asking the school district’s bargaining team to re enter negotiations.

“We decided okay, if they think they haven’t been asked, then we’ll have our bargaining team ask. So then on Thursday our bargaining team allied their bargaining team and then their bargaining team said ok let’s do Monday morning,” said Shibe. “So we went back this morning.”

After certification by the Anchorage League of Women Voters on Saturday, the strike vote resulted with 93 percent of the membership responding and an overwhelming majority of 85 percent of those voters authorizing MSEA to strike. The authorization of a strike vote does not guarantee that a strike will take place, but gives MSEA the legal authority to do so if a settlement is not reached. The vote that took place last week was certified this weekend, and Shibe let her members know the results before going back to the bargaining table with the school district on Monday at 9 a.m. If MSEA decides to strike, they must provide 72 hours notice to the district that they plan to do so.

“This is a clear and definitive message from Mat-Su certified employees to the school board that their most recent offer does not meet our needs,” said Shibe. “As we head back to the bargaining table this morning our goal remains the same; to work collaboratively with the school board to reach a tentative agreement that can be ratified by our members. If we cannot reach a compromise, our members have given us a mandate to exercise our legal authority to strike. We will exercise that right if need be.”