Two SRP local unions are building broad community support in their contract fight for a living wage.

More than 150 NYSUT members from area schools, parents, students and members of other local unions filled the streets of Scottsville in Monroe County in a march to a Wheatland-Chili school board meeting.

There they spoke out against the board's foot-dragging approach to bargaining with School-Related Professionals.

"We are with you in telling this board they need to show you some respect," NYSUT Vice President Kathleen Donahue told marchers before they entered the meeting.
"You have the support of NYSUT's 600,000 members," she said.

The march was led by members of the Wheatland-Chili Federation of Teachers' two separate SRP chapters — one representing clerical personnel, school nurses and aides — the other representing bus drivers, secretaries and food service and maintenance workers.

The fight in Wheatland-Chili is one of several SRP contract campaigns across the state in which workers are standing together for a livable wage for the essential services they provide.

Low wages are making it harder for SRPs to afford to live in the communities in which they work. NYSUT is assisting these locals in their campaigns.

Marchers crowded a school gym where speaker after speaker supported the 100 union members. Many of the SRPs have salaries skirting the edge of the federal income poverty line.

Local president Nancy Scheerens, speaking for both SRP chapters, described herself as a lifelong community resident who attended the schools, as did her children and now their children.

"We are proud of our schools," said Scheerens, who heads the SRP chapter for bus drivers and food service and maintenance workers. "The people whose work makes these schools run should be treated with more respect."

Gail Horne is the president of the paraprofessionals SRP chapter.

Scheerens gave the board 40 letters of support she received from community residents while distributing fliers about the march.

Patty Bruno, president of the Wheatland-Chili FT, said board stalling "has let down our schools and community."

Gary Ward, a former FT local president, asked board members: "Why are you holding up people who live and work in this community? Why are you prolonging this unhappy impasse?"

Describing SRPs as "the backbone of good things happening in our schools," one parent — a PTA leader — told board members: "They don't make a lot and they're not asking a lot."

James Bertolone of the AFL-CIO Rochester Labor Council summed up the feelings of many when he told rally participants: "If working people can't make a decent living, how will this country make an economic recovery?"

Contact Bernie Mulligan at bmulliga@nysutmail.org