Six-year labor deal for the Hewlett-Woodmere Faculty Association

After intense negotiations, constant attendance at board meetings, rallies and demonstrations of unity with the wearing of New York State United Teachers T-shirts, the Hewlett-Woodmere Faculty Association is now working under a new six-year labor contract.

The Hewlett-Woodmere Board of Education approved the memorandum of agreement, dated March 21, at its April 4 meeting.

“It makes me feel very gratified,” HWFA president Ric Stark said. “We still have a board that values its public schools enough to make sure that they have six years of stability and sustainability.”

The teachers’ five-year contract expired last June, and the new contract will be retroactive to July 1, 2022. Teachers will see an increase in salary of 1 percent each year of the deal.

Stark said that 73 percent of union members approved the agreement. “It’s a fair contract,” he said. “There’s an old saying in negotiating that a fair contract is one where there are things in it that both sides aren’t happy about — that means it’s fair. You’ve given in on certain issues, they’ve given in on certain issues and that’s how you reach an agreement.”

The district’s secretarial unit, custodial and maintenance workers and computer technicians, who are members of the United Public Service Employees Union, remain without a new deal. The secretarial union has been working under an expired contract since June 2020, the longest period of any union in the district.

Brandon Nasierowski, a UPSEU labor relations representative, did not disclose details on where his union stands on negotiations with the district. “It takes time to get to a deal that’s good,” he said.

Last Nov. 8, HWFA members rallied outside Hewlett High School, on East Rockaway Road, and walked along Broadway carrying signs and wearing NYSUT T-shirts. Passing motorists honked to show their support.

The teachers were joined at another rally that month, before a school board meeting, by Nasierowski and members of the secretarial unit, custodial/maintenance and computer technicians.

Hewlett-Woodmere is one of two public school districts in the Five Towns, along with Lawrence. Teachers, social workers, speech teachers and others in the Lawrence district have been working without a new contract for 12 years, the longest period in the state.

“Having Lawrence next door,” Stark said, “served as a message for how important it is to have a robust public school system.”

Lawrence Teachers Association President Rachel Kreiss commented on Hewlett teachers’ new deal, which was settled in less than a year. “I am happy for them that they were able to settle in a timely manner,” she said. “It expired in June, but they were able to work with the Board of Education and get a contract resolved.”

Teachers, police and firefighters are governed by the State Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act, known as the Taylor Law, which prohibits employees from striking when a union contract has expired. The employees are legally required to work under the expired deal until a new one is in place.

Last weekend, Lawrence teachers, led by Kreiss, took to the streets of Cedarhurst in the hope of sending a message to the Lawrence Board of Education and the district administration to come together on a new agreement (see accompanying story).

Stark and HWFA members joined the Lawrence educators, showing their support for their decade-long fight.

“It means the world to me,” Kreiss said of their support. “As the LTA, it means everything that we have Hewlett-Woodmere and other teachers unions. Other districts have made it their mission not to let what we’re going through happen to them. That’s been their message: ‘If it can happen in Lawrence, it can happen to us, and we cannot let them stand alone.’”