Union members speak out against outsourcing jobs at school board meeting

PHILIPSBURG, Pa. (WTAJ)– Several members of the Philipsburg-Osceola Education Support Professionals union were at the district’s school board meeting on Wednesday night as part of their collective bargaining with the district continues.

The bargaining process has been ongoing since February, and both sides say that they have been able to move closer on several items. Union members at the meeting spoke out for higher, more livable wages and raised concerns over the district potentially outsourcing cafeteria jobs.

“Your departments are only as good as your workers,” a union advocate during public comment said. “Those workers are great workers.”

“They deserve to have fair wages and I think that it’s important that we don’t have money going out of the district,” another union member added.

Dawn Miller, president of the Philipsburg-Osceola Education Support Professionals, says that they hoped to show how devoted their members are to their jobs and the students.

“Outsourcing would be devastating for the staff,” Miller said. But also for our children that come here to the school. This would really affect the disability children who really rely on seeing the same people, the friendly faces.”

The school board responded with a prepared statement, thanking everyone who came to speak on the topic. They say that the outsourcing would not be to replace any current workers but to help fill open jobs.

“The proposal relative to subcontracting has not been proposed in such a way that would affect anybody that is currently on staff,” the school board said in a statement read at the meeting. “All those employees who are currently employed by the district will remain district employees.”

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All of the union members in attendance walked out of the meeting and met outside to thank each other for coming out, and to discuss what they hope to accomplish. The current contract between the union and the district is set to expire on the last day of June.

“If we make this easy for them now, then it’ll be all the easier for them the next time, and the next time, and the next time,” one union member said to the group.

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