NTU Update - January 20, 2017

Colleagues,

1. Day Of Action: Thursday’s Day Of Action was a great success.  We had actions all around the city, and you can find pictures on our Facebook and website.  If you have any pictures from your school, send them along to mmaillaro@newarkteachersunion.com. Actions like this are vital to build up solidarity and show that we will fight back!  This is also why it’s so important to be engaged in our Respect The Contract campaign and letter writing campaigns.  Thank you!

2. Stipend Payment: At the Superintendent’s meeting three weeks ago, we were told the stipend payment would be coming January 20^th , so we sent out notice to members to notify them.  Clearly this did not happen, and no notice was sent to the membership or the Union saying the date would be changed.

I sent out an email to NPS this morning to see what happened, and NPS responded in writing that the payment would now be made January 30^th.  NPS explained, “A communication was sent to the locations advising them that in order for us to make the January 20^th payment, we must receive the information from the locations by January 6, 2017.  Unfortunately, we did not receive the information from all the locations in a timely manner to make the January 20^th payment date, hence the reason it was moved to the 30^th.”

We believe that you “can’t punish the punctual.”  At schools where the paperwork was submitted on time, the payments should be made immediately, and every effort should be made to make payment to ALL staff as soon as possible!  When we get more information, we will send it out immediately.

3. Letter Writing Campaign-  Our letter writing campaign has sent 700 letters to local legislators across the state.  President Abeigon increased visits to Trenton to testify on our behalf and speak to NJDOE and NJSBOE leadership speaks to the success of the campaign. Keep up the good work, and if you haven’t sent yours yet, what are you waiting for?   It’s simple.  Just go to the below link, enter your address, hit send, and you are done.

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/chris-cerf-bargain-a-fair-contract-with-newark-education-workers

4. Supplemental Fringe Benefits Update: The Appellate Division GRANTED our Application for Motion for a Stay. Although this in no way guarantees that the Appellate Division will ultimately stay the trial court orders, the granting of this application is an indication that they believe there is a real issue with the trial court orders. (These applications are rarely granted. Our attorneys claim, they can only recall one instance where the court granted this sort of application).

Short version--a win for us, a loss for Cerf.

5. Phase 2 Respect the Contract – So far, Phase 2 has been successful, but we know there are literally hundreds of health and safety, evaluation, Head Start, and Special Ed violations that the district continues to commit.  THEY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!  These complaints are going through the state and feds, so they may take some time to resolve. Please follow this link to get started: http://newark.nj.aft.org/respect-contract/phase-ii-toolkit

If you have any questions or suggestions on how to improve this process, email Mike Maillaro at mmaillaro@newarkteachersunion.com.

IMPORTANT REMINDER! The Phase 2 forms are for violations of state and federal law, regulations, and guidelines.  If the issue is a “routine” violation of the contract (a la Phase 1), that should be dealt with through the Building Rep or NTU office, not by using the complaint forms!  That is what our grievance policy is for!

 In Solidarity,