Stand Up  And Be Counted!
Now it is your turn to make your opinions known and have your voice heard in the upcoming contract negotiations. The Combined Negotiations Committee (CNC) has prepared a quick and easy-to-complete online survey that will help us to understand the bargaining priorities of our membership. The link to the survey can be found on our website (www.lmeaonline.org) or direct at http://tinyurl.com/cz29lw It should take no more than 10 – 20 minutes of your time. You will be asked to input your name and the year you were hired so that we can verify your membership, but understand that your responses will be kept strictly confidential and not shared with anyone outside of CNC. You will also be asked to supply a home email address so that we can add you to our growing list of contract-related mail recipients. If you do not have a private email you can get a free email account at Hotmail.com or Yahoo.com. We cannot stress enough the importance of this survey. It is critical to successful bargaining that we know what our members want in the next contract. Please go to the above link and complete the survey before the closing deadline of May 8th.
Our current contract expires in July 2010. Under Pennsylvania law, negotiations with the district must begin no later than January. Assisting the LMEA bargaining team will be a representative from the PSEA called a Uniserve. He/she will bring all of the data resources from the PSEA as well as first hand knowledge of recent settlements in Bucks and Montgomery counties. If past negotiations are any indication, the district will come to the bargaining table with their own team consisting of administrators assigned by the school board and an expert negotiator hired by the district. A series of meetings will be scheduled with the goal of reaching an agreement before the end of the school year in June, 2010. Any tentative agreement must be formally approved by both parties and this will require a special meeting of the LMEA general membership held for that purpose. If a tentative agreement cannot be reached before the end of the school year both sides will continue bargaining throughout the summer in the hope that a settlement can be reached before the end of August. Throughout this process we will keep the membership informed in various ways. Building reps will receive monthly reports from CNC at our Executive Committee meetings held at the LMEA office. Similar reports will be made at our four regularly scheduled General Membership meetings and direct to our members through the CNC private email distribution (sign up when you take the survey or by sending a message to lmeacontract@comcast.net). Please keep in mind, however, that the CNC will be striving to produce a fair settlement and the best way to achieve that is to keep specific issues being bargained out of the public spotlight until an agreement has been reached. The regular updates will, therefore, be lacking in specifics but will let the membership know whether CNC is pleased (or not pleased) with the progress.
Open Enrollment Approaches
It’s almost that time of year again when employees will have the opportunity to sign up for or switch district health plans without preconditions. The district will announce open-enrollment in the next few weeks and the opportunity to choose a different plan will be available for three weeks following the start date. Anyone who is not currently enrolled in the disability plan is strongly encouraged to sign up through Barbara Pollack in the Employee Benefits department. The copayment for the plan is minimal when one considers the cost of not having insurance if you become disabled. The available medical plans can be examined on the district website at lmsd.org/for staff/forms and documents/HR tab/scroll down to Medical Insurance Options.
LMEA’s Seminar on Maternity and Child Leave a Success!
The free seminar on maternity and child rearing leave hosted by Arlene Flicker and Aimee Avellino was held to a packed house at the LMEA office on March 3rd and April 14th. Participants left with a packet of valuable information and all of their unique questions answered. More of these seminars will be planned for next year.
Mark Your Calendar for LMEA Spring Banquet!
This year the annual LMEA Spring banquet will be held on Wednesday, May 27, at the Eviva Restaurant located on Montgomery Avenue in Ardmore. Please avoid scheduling events that will conflict and mark your calendars to attend what promises to be a spectacular event. Please come and celebrate the [happy] end of another year and honor our departing retirees as they embark on life’s next great adventure. If you or someone you know is retiring from the district please inform Terri Tyler, our Social Chair, at Cynwyd ES asap.
Unit Meetings
Once each year the president of the LMEA holds a unit meeting in each of the schools and major departments. These meetings are an opportunity to share issues and have questions answered directly by the LMEA leadership. The schedule for the remaining 2008-09 Unit Meetings is as follows:
Operations……………April 21 @ 3:00 Welsh Valley………….May 5 @ 3:15
Merion………………..April 23 @ 3:45 Harriton………………May 6 @ 2:45
LMEA•306 Parsons Ave Bala Cynwyd, Pa 19004 •610-664-5450•
Fax 610-664-5451•www.lmeaonline.org |
