A 30-member splinter group compromised mostly of Chugiak-Eagle River teachers is protesting what they say is improper handling by their own bargaining union of teacher contract talks with the Anchorage School District.
"We want to make it perfectly clear that we support our union, we support our colleagues in seeking fair pay and benefits," said Kelly Parsons, a history teacher at Eagle River High School. "But we are not pleased with the lack of information being communicated to the general membership by the board that is now doing the bargaining. We are not in favor of a strike, at least not with this particular leadership."
Parsons and other teachers want more specific information as to why the former bargaining team - made up mostly of active classroom teachers - was removed earlier this summer and why the general membership of the Anchorage Education Association was not given a say in the decision.
AEA president Rich Kronberg said he isn't commenting regarding the splinter teachers who are opting to wear white - symbolic of coming out of the dark - versus the union's solidarity choice of purple.
Kronberg said he'd rather stay focused on Monday night's vote at the Sullivan Arena to accept or reject the school district's last best offer.
That offer would increase pay 2.5 percent over the next three school years starting this fall and also up the amount of money the district pays toward health insurance premiums - from $700 for 2005-06 to $865 for 2006-07 to $985 for 2007-08.
Kronberg said he personally won't support the offer. Nonetheless, he said it is up to membership to decide if they'll accept what came out of the last round of negotiations. Members of the splinter group say it is unfair for the union bargainers to ask them to vote when a complete agreement has not been reached.
"The general membership really does not know what has been agreed upon and what has not," said Gretchen Wehmhoff, a journalism instructor at Chugiak High School, after a group meeting held at the Jitters coffee house in Eagle River Monday night. "How can they ask us to authorize a strike when most of us don't have a full picture of what is out there?"
Kronberg said that, according to the state Public Employees Relations Act, the teacher's union does not have to reject a complete tentative agreement prior to voting to authorize a strike. The union only has to have reached an impasse with the school district, which is defined as not coming to a mutual agreement after post-arbitration bargaining, which occurred in June.
Wehmhoff, a member of the former union bargaining team, said legally speaking Kronberg is correct. But that doesn't mean the tactic to potentially approve the district's last best offer sits well with her or other teachers.
"The membership is confused as to what the negotiators are really asking us to do," Wehmhoff said. "What are we really voting on?"
Elaine Miller, a Chugiak science teacher, echoed the same frustration.
"I do not have all the pieces of information regarding the entire negotiation," she said. "At this point, I would have to say no to a strike because we just don't have all the information."
Kronberg countered, saying, "The first thing we will do after a potential strike authorization vote is to invite the district back to the bargaining table and a potential strike is just another tool in our continued negations."
Possible authorization of a strike won't be known until sometime Wednesday after all AEA members and agency fee payers - the five percent of the union who are not dues paying members to the AEA - are given time to vote through Tuesday.
School is set to begin Sept. 6.
Agency fee payers don't get to vote on potential contracts, but do have the right to vote on potential strikes, Kronberg said.
Voting on both the district's last best offer and a potential strike will be supervised by the Alaska League of Women Voters, Kronberg said.
