May 15, 2006

MEMO TO: Dr. James Williams, Superintendent
Members, Board of Education

FROM: Philip Rumore, President, BTF

RE: May 5, 2006 Negotiations Letter

When you stated in your May 5, 2006 letter, "I am asking all of the unions to follow that example and to take it one step further and drop their grievances, PERB proceedings and legal challenges to the insurance plan and sit down to negotiate new collective bargaining agreements", it appeared clear to us that you were preconditioning negotiations on "[dropping our] grievances, PERB proceedings and legal challenges to the insurance plan".

In your most recent correspondence (attached), you seem to threaten us with additional layoffs if there is no negotiated settlement even though you have unilaterally imposed a single carrier and not rehired our currently laid-off colleagues. You stated, "If we do not soon resolve the issue of single carrier health insurance, we will have to make additional painful cuts to balance our budget." We are not clear as to what that means.

You seem to believe that negotiations must take place with a threat hanging over our heads. That is hardly a way of opening a real dialogue which will result in a successful resolution of a contract.

Despite the above, as stated in my April 27 correspondence, we remain willing to resume negotiations without preconditions and with a PERB appointed mediator. Your correspondence fails to address this as well. You also make no reference to our request for the 2006-2007 budget information in the ST-3 format.

We look forward to successful negotiations and an end to the legal battles so that we can all concentrate our full attention on the education of our students. Now there's a concept.

cc BTF Executive Committee

PR/rs