After a week of informational picketing, Educational Support Professionals return to bargaining table

“One Job Should Be Enough,” read signs carried by members of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 ESP chapter conducting informational picketing February 24 at Lucy Laney School.

March 2, 2020

By Steve Share, Minneapolis Labor Review editor

MINNEAPOLIS —After three days of informational picketing last week, Educational Support Professionals go back to the bargaining table this evening with the Minneapolis Public Schools. Their picket signs and chants last week proclaimed, “one job should be enough!”

“We need a contract that’s going to make a difference in the lives of our members and get them out of poverty,” said Ma-Riah Roberson-Moody, speaking at a one of the informational pickets February 24 at Lucy Laney Elementary School.

“We’re trying to bargain for what our members need, not what the district can afford,” said Roberson-Moody, St. Paul, who is an ESP at Roosevelt High School and has worked for the Minneapolis Public Schools for four years.

The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 ESP chapter surveyed its members and found that two-thirds have at least two jobs. Three-quarters earn less than $29,500 per year. And yet ESPs must pay the same amount in their health insurance premiums as do other district employees who earn more than $100,000 per year.

“As ESPs, we cover a lot,” said Kim Ambers, Minneapolis, a 28-year ESP who works at Lucey Laney. “We are in classrooms assisting with the teaching and learning. We are the recess supervisor, the lunch supervisor. We work in special ed... Anything and everything is asked of us... We are praying, hoping wanting the district to recognize the work we do.”

“When ESPs are not paid enough, that falls on the community,” said 5th District U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, who joined the picket line at Lucy Laney and spoke with the ESPs. “We have one of the highest disparities in education,” Omar noted. “This is about community. This is about family. This is about taking care of our most vulnerable.”

“We love these kids. We love what we do,” said Lia-Rasheedah Henry, Minneapolis, a district employee since 2002 and ESP at Harrison Education Center.

But, she asked, “how can we do our job 100 percent effectively… not knowing what we’re going to do to make ends meet?”

“The district needs to wake up,” Henry said. “They wake up or we walk out.”

Kim Ambers, Minneapolis, a 28-year ESP who works at Lucy Laney Elementary School. “We are praying, hoping, wanting the district to recognize the work we do.”

In the current round of contract negotiations — which have been going on since last summer — the school district is proposing wage increases of zero percent, one percent or two percent for different job classes for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years. And, for the second contract in a row, the district wants some of its lowest-paid employees to take a step freeze.

Over the years, ESP wages simply aren’t keeping up with living costs, said 38-year district employee Susan Joy Broman, ESP at Webster Elementary and first vice president of MFT Local 59’s ESP chapter. “People can’t make a living here,” she said.

On the informational picket line February 27 at Burroughs Elementary, Broman explained, “instead of a cost-of-living raise, they’ve done a raise of two or one or three percent which never matches it.”

Now, in the current labor market, the district is needing to pay new hires more to fill vacant ESP positions. And that’s leading to veteran ESPs earning less than the new hires they’re training.

“We have six steps… but we have people that are going on three or four years still stuck — because they froze the steps — on step one,” Broman reported. “Then what happens… is the district has had problems filling those positions… so they hire people in on step two or step three and then the people that have been here for a few years and are still on step one have to train them in… Then we have the people that have been here for three years decide they’re going somewhere else.”

Broman said wage parity is another big issue. “The people that work with special ed children make $2 less than the people who work with general ed children. That devalues the kids and the people who work with them.”

“I believe in the kids,” Broman said, echoing the dedication and purpose expressed by many ESPs. “I enjoy seeing the kids do the best that they can and knowing that we’ve had a part of that.”

“We are the people that make school happen,” Broman said. “That’s another one of our slogans but it’s absolutely true.”

Susan Joy Broman, ESP at Webster Elementary and first vice president of MFT Local 59’s ESP chapter: “People can’t make a living here.”

Members of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 ESP chapter conducting informational picketing February 27 at Burroughs Elementary School.