The Examiner U-46 News Feed

District U-46 approves new DUEA union contract

By Seth Hancock
  The Board of Education in School District U-46 unanimously approved, a three-year contract with the District U-46 Educational Assistants (DUEA) with a 5.4 percent pay increase at its meeting on Monday, Aug. 22.
  The union that represents paraprofessionals, piano accompanists and sign language interpreters had been operating under a one-year contract extension to a 2017-2021 agreement with this new contract running from 2022 to 2025. That one-year extension, approved last August, included a 6.1 percent pay increase.
  “The original demand to bargain was received on March 5, 2021. And we negotiated a one-year agreement with DUEA on Aug. 3 of 2021,” said Trisha Olson, chief legal officer. “Afterwards, we continued to bargain in earnest throughout the remainder of 2021. There were some long days, and we did a great job of working together throughout all of it including through the spring and summer of 2022.”
  Olson said this new contract received 97 percent approval when voted on by the union on Aug. 11.
  Starting wages will increase across the board with a 5.4 percent increase to the base salary for paraprofessional in Fiscal Year 2023, a 4 percent increase in FY 2024 and an increase based on the Consumer Price Index, the government’s price inflation calculation, with a floor of 2.75 percent and ceiling of 5 percent.
  The wage increases for sign language interpreters and accompanists is 3 percent across the board each year.
  The new contract has yet to be posted on the district’s website nor is it available on the board’s public documents page.