Apr 20, 2016 3 min read

WAYNESBURG – A standing-room only crowd of teachers from school districts across Greene County and even members of United Mine Workers packed the Central Greene School Board meeting Tuesday night to show support for that district’s teachers as they continue to negotiate a new union contract.

“We’ll be here until we have a contract,” said Melissa Wilson, president of Central Greenethe teachers’ union.

The district has been negotiating a contract with the teachers’ union for about 14 months. A tentative agreement was reached by negotiators in March, but the school board rejected it by a 7-2 vote at its March 15 meeting.

The two votes in favor of the contract were from school directors John Jacobs and Sharon Bennett, both members of the district’s bargaining committee that helped craft the proposal. The union, whose 165 members have been working without a contract since June, had tentatively approved the agreement.

Wilson said she was encouraged to have support from members of other unions and the miners Tuesday. About 100 people stood around the table and in the seating area to support the Central Greene teachers union.

“I think it’s amazing to see these other unions show support,” she said. “They know what it’s like to work for a year without a contract.”

Some miners said they were there because they know how difficult contract negotiations can be.

“The closing of the mines is affecting everybody and we want to support them because they support us,” Harry Seybald said.

The negotiations are expected to restart May 4, but with some changes. The board added two more members – Kevin Barnhart and board President Andrew Corfont – to its side of the bargaining committee. In addition to those changes, Superintendent Brian Uplinger will no longer serve as chief negotiator.

The board is also working on a contract to bring in William Andrews, a third party labor attorney from Pittsburgh, to help with the negotiations “for a variety of reasons,” Corfont said.

The board members still have not explained why they voted against the tentative agreement, something the teachers feel they deserve to know.

“They told us at the last negotiating session that it was the last best offer they had,” Wilson said. “We took it back to our union and they approved it in good faith.”

Fred Berestecky, president of the southwestern region of the state’s Education Association, and that group’s vice president, Eric Pringl, also attended the meeting to support the teachers.

“It very seldom happens where you have a tentative agreement and it gets turned down,” Berestecky said.

During the meeting, Corfont read a letter that the board members wrote for public comment, addressing financial issues the district is facing due to the closing of Emerald Mine in November. The letter stated that the district has not yet received $3.4 million in 2015 taxes from Alpha Resources, the mine’s parent company. Central Greene is still expecting to collect that money, but because the value of the mine is expected to decreased by about $10 million, the district could lose close to $260,000 in the 2016-17 school year and even more the following year, the letter stated.

“The administration and board have, over the last several years, taken steps to reduce such impacts, as described, as well as other,” the board collectively wrote in the letter. “However, with the increasing costs that currently surround education, along with the minimal increases in state funding, that places a very large burden on property taxes.”