Update : Follow-up on the news : ORANGE : Workers’ Contract OKd by Trustees
The Orange Unified School District’s non-teaching staff, which went on strike last year over pay issues, has reached agreement on a three-year contract in an atmosphere of cordiality.
“To think that a little over a year ago we went through a strike and now we are on the verge of signing a three-year agreement is a real improvement,” Trustee Martin Jacobson said just before the board’s 7-0 vote this week to ratify the pact.
The 1,160 employees represented by the California School Employees Assn. had ratified the same agreement overwhelmingly earlier this month.
The contract gives employees a 2.75% pay increase to restore a 2.59% cut imposed in 1992, and cost-of-living increases are guaranteed for the last two years of the contract, association President Barbara Noble said.
Union officials led an unsuccessful 10-day strike in May, 1994, over the pay issue. Employees later accepted a one-year contract that included no raise.
Though employees had hoped for more from the new contract, “it’s as good as we can get, and we’re happy about that,” Noble said.
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