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Legislators are proposing a 2% salary "increase" next year. But what that amounts to for classified employees and many higher education staff is not an increase at all. On avearage, a 2% for these employees will amount to a whopping .20 cents more an hour. |
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Nearly $388 million in new money is projected for the budget year that starts in July 2008. That's the estimated amount of money that lawmkaers can use to increase the state's operating budget and to offset tax cuts.
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Las Cruces, NM - In early May, the bus drivers for Durham School Services, who tranport k-12 children in the Las Cruces Public Schools, organized over forty members and showed up to a Las Cruces School Board meeting to send a strong message: “SAFETY MUST COME BEFORE PROFIT.” Organizing paid off. The private company has conceded to their demands.
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It's been four years since AFT New Mexico started our lobbying efforts to have legislators require that two and four year higher education institutions report their higher education staffing practices, particularly the overuse of part-time adjunct faculty and staff. For four years, our efforts have been stalled. Fortunately, in a pre-emptive move to stop the Senate from stalling the bill another year, the House passed House Memorial 82. READ MORE.
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The House approved a minimum wage bill this weekend that put the hourly minimum at $7.50 by 2009. The bill must get approval from the Senate before it reaches the governor's desk.
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The Senate and House have passed the Conference Report on the budget. The budget is now on its' way to the Governor's desk. Read more.
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School Plus, an early intervention program that would give K-3rd grade students in high poverty areas extra instructional time, has been signed by Governor Richardson. We applaud some members in the House and the Senate, and the Governor for passing this important program.
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Election Results: Who Won? Who Lost?
Find a full listing of election results by clicking here.
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SANTA FE --Last week, New Mexico Education Secretary Veronica Garcia requested $2.4 billion to run the state's public schools during the next school year.
A salary bump for principals and physical education teachers for elementary school students were included during last Friday’s meeting of the Legislative Finance Committee. Budgeted raises for other school employees were missing |
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Last week, 80% of school employees in Socorro voted in favor of union representation. The district will now recognize AFT New Mexico as the exclusive bargaining agent for employees in the district.
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Who are the unions supporting for the November elections an why? What congressional district do you live in? Who is your state legislator? Where are early voting sites?
Now you can find out at your fingertips. |
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CSEC-LC #4994 was supposed to enter negotiations with Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) no later than March 15, 2006 for the custodian and educational assistants, That represents approximately 650 employees. However, the District did not attempt to meet with CSEC-LC until the middle of May. After a three month delay and only three sessions with the District and the union, the District declared impasse on June 8th. But it doesn't end there.
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The New Mexico Public Education Department, The Broad Foundation and
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How does your legislator add up when it comes to public schools? Find out.
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There are some union critics who claim that employees just don’t have it in them to unionize by themselves anymore. They’re wrong. Last November, a group pf physical plant department employees in the Las Cruces School District called Irma Valdespino, President of CSEC-LC, a joint AFT New Mexico and NEA-NM local union and asked for help. Today, they are CSEC-LC’s newest collective bargaining unit.
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Another bad policy idea born out of a national political think tank is coming our way. This one would cut vital support staff. The so-called 65% solution is being promoted by a group calling itself First Class Education and mandates that 65 cents of every education dollar be spent in the classroom. What sounds good as a catch phrase would be horrible in practice for students and educational employees. Find out why.
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The 2006 session is over. Public education made significant gains during the session, particularly by the fact that local districts and local unions are now able to negotiate salary increases based on an "average." That means employees left out of the three-tiered system, may receive higher raises this year.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT PASSED AND FAILED. |
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When state higher education institutions put together a $429 capital outlay request, their request was responded to with a $308 million shortfall from the Department of Higher Education.
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Today, January 13, Gadsden school employees won back AFT union representation. All school district employees had been without Collective Bargaining since 1999 when the law sunset.
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In December, AFT New Mexico joined with other education groups asked lawmakers on Friday to allocate enough money for public schools next year to provide raises averaging 8 percent for all school workers. Read the full AP story by Deborah Baker.
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More New Mexicans favor using the state's expected revenue windfall to improve public schools than cutting taxes or giving a tax rebate, according to a public opinion poll commissioned for an education group. |
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At a press conference on September 14th, Gov. Bill Richardson announced he wants to create financial incentives for parents to become more involved in their children's public schools.
The governor did not offer details of his plans but said at a news conference that he's considering a proposal to establish a tax credit for employers that allows parents time off to participate in school events. |
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When it comes to a living wage for secretaries, clerks, and bookkeepers, public schools aren’t adding up. Yvonne Rodriguez, President of the Albuquerque Secretarial and Clerical Association (ASCA) said that more often than not, employees on the “B” salary schedule for APS are finding themselves falling further and further behind financially.
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In 2004, AFT New Mexico led a grassroots campaign to begin the legislative process of establishing minimum salaries tied to licensure requirements. Although not all we had hoped for, HB304 was passed and signed by the Governor and sets forth an $11,000-$12,000 salary minimum for all EAs in the state. |
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During the 2005 legislative session, various proposals were passed in an attempt to fix what actuaries reported as a huge unfunded liability in our Educational Retirement Fund. One proposal that passed included increasing the employee and employer contributions to the retirement fund.
In addition, a moratorium on benefits enhancements was passed and a study of switching from a defined benefits plan to a defined contributions plan. The move to a defined contributions plan would be a bad move for school employees. Read the full article for specific bills that impact the ERB. |
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Standards of Good Practice in the Employment of Part-time Adjunct Faculty
There is an urgent need to professionalize the manner in which part-time/adjunct faculty are employed, compensated, supported and treated in higher education—both by their employers and their unions.
The standards of good practice laid out in this Fairness and Equity Report is the cornerstone of AFT’s continuing efforts to promote equity and high standards for part-time/adjunct faculty.
But improving the treatment of part-time/adjunct faculty addresses only part of the academic personnel crisis in higher education. In addition to the explosion in part-time/adjunct faculty hiring, colleges and universities around the country are greatly expanding the number of full-time temporary, nontenure- track faculty jobs, as well as increasing the teaching performed by graduate employees. Many of the destructive patterns of exploitation and unprofessional treatment that characterize the treatment of part-time/adjunct faculty are being mirrored in these other personnel trends.
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No one who takes a job as a PSRP does it just for the money. More likely, they will cite their pleasure at working with kids, flexible work hours that allow time with their own children, and maybe the good benefits that often come with the job. But pay is rarely the big attraction.
The latest AFT salary survey of PSRP jobs, “Compensation Report 2005,” shows why low salaries routinely rank at the top of education support employees’ concerns. While there is some good news from the latest report—such as the fact that between 2000 and 2003, wage increases in 19 of the 26 job categories outpaced inflation—pay rates for PSRPs in the public sector have not kept up with comparable private sector jobs. |
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Actively supported by AFT New Mexico and Governor Bill Richardson, the New Mexico Public Employee Bargaining Act was passed into law in 2003. The law restored rights to employees to be represented by a formally recognized union and set forth parameters of non-discriminatory labor practices.
The Associated Press highlighted the laughable argument made by opponents that "it would make wages spiral upward."
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In September 2003, New Mexico voters aprroved an historic Constitutional Amendment to increase the pay out to New Mexico's public schools from the Permanent Fund.
Today, the increased distribution from the fund is used to fund innovative school reform legislation passed by Governor Richardson that puts more money into our classrooms and finally brings New Mexico's teachers up to national pay standards through a three-tiered licensure system. |
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The AFT supports parents' right to send their children to private or religious schools but opposes the use of public funds to do so. The main reason for this opposition is because public funding of private or religious education transfers precious tax dollars from public schools, which are free and open to all children, accountable to parents and taxpayers alike, and essential to our democracy, to private and religious schools that charge for their services, select their students on the basis of religious or academic or family or personal characteristics, and are accountable only to their boards and clients.
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Public education is funded through three main sources in New Mexico. New Mexico is unique in how we fund our schools. Geographically, New Mexico is a rural state. In 1974, in order to ensure that no district was shortchanged funding based on it's size, the Legislature established the State Equalization Guarantee (SEG) -- the first and most progressive of it's kind in the nation.
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During the 2005 legislative session, AFT New Mexico's higher education affiliates worked together to have a memorial passed that provides for a study of the use of part time versus ful time faculty and staff.
AFT New Mexico Higher Education Vice-President Tim Crone says the study is a starting point to begin addressing the blatant overuse of part-time faculty in New Mexico's two and four year institutions.
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In 2004 AFT New Mexico Vice-President Kathy Chavez led the union's statewide campaign to establish a statewide salary minimum for Educational Assistants. Today, this law is the springboard for our continuing efforts to bring paraprofessionals up to professional pay that matches the new requirements of NCLB. AFT New Mexico will return to the legislature next year to take the law further by establishing a tiered salary structure that compensates NM paraprofessionals for the new requirements of NCLB. |
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The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act established new educational requirements for paraprofessionals. All paraprofessionals who work in a program that receives Title I funds and who provide instructional support (including support for special-needs students in schoolwide projects) must meet the new requirements. Paraprofessionals working at the time the law was enacted ( |
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An uneven playing field for faculty and staff Two May reports from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) show an uneven landscape for staff and faculty at universities and colleges in the United States, with a growing number of part-time faculty, racial and gender disparities in rank and salary, and disadvantages at for-profit institutions. |
Photographs and illustrations, as well as text, cannot be used without permission from the AFT.