Cambridge City Council Declines to Back Staff Union as Contract Negotiations Enter Tenth Month

Negotiations between the Cambridge School Committee and the union representing much of the district’s staff are dragging into their tenth month — and the two remain gridlocked on a slate of key demands.

The Cambridge Education Association consists of six bargaining units, which separately represent teachers, administrators, clerks, substitutes, paraprofessionals, and safety specialists. All six have been working under expired contracts since at least Sept. 1. For the other five units, negotiations have stretched across at least 18 meetings with the School Committee since January.

Contracts for safety specialists — who asked to start bargaining in the spring — expired this summer. Their unit bargained with the district over the summer, but no further sessions have been scheduled.

CEA President Chris Montero said the union met with the School Committee last Friday and has two dates set for October for the other five units. Cambridge Public Schools spokesperson Jaclyn Piques confirmed that the district offered five dates in October, and the parties settled on Oct. 7 and Oct. 21.

Many of the union’s demands center on compensation and benefits — including an increase to the starting salary for paraprofessionals, more affordable health insurance, and 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

Montero said both parties agree on 12 weeks of paid parental leave but disagree over the School Committee’s push to exclude employees hired within the last year from the policy. The district has publicly said its proposal would increase paid parental leave from eight weeks to 12.

The pay for paraprofessionals has been a major sticking point with the School Committee, Montero said. The union has sights set on a $55,000 base salary, a jump from the current $32,000.

While the union originally wanted the higher salary to take effect this school year, it revised the proposal on Friday, instead seeking a starting salary of roughly $45,000 this school year and $55,000 next school year.

The district released a bargaining update in early September and wrote that the School Committee’s proposed wage scale would raise base pay for the lowest-paid paraprofessionals by nearly 60 percent over two years. Montero described the committee’s offer as reaching just under $50,000 by 2029, conditional on an employee having an associate’s degree or approved-program requirement by the contract’s third year. Piques declined to disclose the offer’s specific terms.

The CEA is also looking to place a paraprofessional in every classroom for pre-K through fifth grade — and they estimate hiring enough staff to do so would cost roughly $2.52 million alone.

CPS has estimated that the union’s proposals as a whole would require $54 million beyond the approved operating budget in their first year and $175 million over three years. Superintendent David G. Murphy wrote in a statement that the union’s current proposals were “not financially sustainable.”

The union has proposed drawing the funds from the city’s free cash reserve or excess tax revenue, both of which hold more than $100 million. While the School Committee is responsible for overseeing the use of funds for the district, the union wrote that “the overall funding of the school budget is the task of the City Council and the City Manager.”

Councilor Ayah A. Al-Zubi ’23 introduced a policy order on Monday night, asking the Council to formally support the union’s demands as negotiations drag. While she acknowledged that the funding concerns were a budget conversation, she said the impetus of the order was to “be informed on the process.”

“This gives an opportunity for the school committee to tell us what is needed, and I’d love to see a request from the school committee so that we’re not interfering with your process,” she said.

But the City Council declined to back the union. Though many councilors were sympathetic to the CEA’s demands, they argued that contract negotiations are under the purview of the School Committee.

“I do believe it’s very inappropriate for the City Council to be voting on this because this is the business of the School Committee,” Vice Mayor Burhan Azeem said. “So I will be voting no tonight, not because I am not sympathetic to the paraprofessionals, but because we don’t have the authority to be making a decision about our teachers and our staff’s salaries.”

Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, the only Council member who sits on the School Committee, recused herself from the vote. Four councilors voted against the order to back the CEA, while two voted present and two voted in support.

—Staff writer Tess E. Sumner can be reached at [email protected].