March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Brewer teachers ratify pact without first-year pay raise

Brewer teachers ratified a four-year agreement Friday that calls for no salary increase in the current year, but a 13 percent raise over the subsequent three years.

In what’s believed to be the largest turnout for a contract vote in Brewer, teachers approved the package 91 to 40, closing the chapter in a long and difficult negotiation.

Following the counting of the ballots Friday afternoon, chief teacher negotiator Jackie Norton said she was elated and relieved that the process, which began last May, is over.

But she also expressed mixed feelings about the package that was approved by the Brewer School Committee earlier in the week.

On the positive side, teachers will receive a salary increase of 5 percent next year and 4 percent in each of the following two years. The new contract also gives teachers two more days of family leave that they can take without penalizing their sick-leave time.

Full insurance is maintained. And there’s a provision for job sharing, whereby two teachers, with permission from the School Committee, can work part time and combine their jobs.

What isn’t in the contract, and what Norton said may have prompted many teachers to vote against it, was that there was no increase for this year.

“Teachers feel betrayed,” she said. Last year, the educators had agreed to a salary freeze on the condition that a raise would be coming this year.

As it stands, teachers at the top of the scale, which accounts for a majority of them, haven’t had a raise in three years. Those still on the salary scale, however, would have received step increases during this time.

Frustrated with the stalled negotiations, teachers this fall picketed outside the school in the mornings and at School Committee meetings at night. On one occasion, dozens of students also had picketed during a school day.

Teachers weren’t the only ones unhappy with parts of the contract this week. On Monday, School Committee Chairman Ruth Spellman voted against the agreement, the only one to do so.

Spellman declined to be specific Friday about why she voted against the package. She did say her opposition had to do with something other than the salary increases.

“The things that I wanted taken care of weren’t and one thing that was in there, I didn’t want,” she said in a brief phone interview.

About 94 percent of the city’s teachers voted Friday afternoon, with only about eight teachers not voting.

“I’ve been here 27 years and I’ve never seen such a high turnout,” Norton said.


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