Before classes began on Wednesday morning, a crowd of about 60 Durham Public Schools workers and students marched in a circle outside of Jordan High School.
“What do we want?” asked a Durham Association of Educators (DAE) picketer. (“NO CUTS!” shouted the crowd.) “When do we want it?” (“NOW!”)
One of nearly 30 “practice pickets” held across the district, the 8:30 a.m. event was a walk-in, rather than a walk-out. After about 15 minutes of demonstrating, the group put their signs down and went about their workday.
Wednesday’s practice mobilization was a warning to district administration that the union, boasting a membership of a majority of Durham Public Schools (DPS) workers, is ready to make April a very, very, difficult month.
“With a budget that is not clear, with a budget that seems like there’s going to be some cuts, and with a budget that’s not receiving worker input, we can’t be sure that the students of Durham Public Schools will get what they need,” DAE President Mika Twietmeyer told press at Jordan.
On Monday, DAE leadership sat down with three board members to push for a list of nine demands, including greater budget transparency. Board members were receptive and attentive, but declined to make any promises, especially regarding Twietmeyer’s request that they delay next week’s budget vote until the district provides more financial information.
“No cuts” and “budget transparency” are the union’s explicit demands, but “more respect” may as well have been written in sharpie on the DAE’s handmade signs, too.
Union members have been seething since last week when they were left out of finalizing a meet and confer policy (meant to give workers more input on district decisions) that they had been pushing the school board to adopt for over a year. The board, in a surprise vote, bucked the union’s demands and passed a version of the policy that the union had not agreed to.
“We were cut out of being able to actually bring [the policy] back to our membership, and that’s unacceptable,” DAE representative Allison Swaim told board members on Monday. “What we got on Thursday was so disrespectful and such a—it was horrible, some of us were crying, it was just not a victory.”
The practice picket also lets the union work out the logistics of mustering its own strength.
While North Carolina law forbids public sector workers from striking, DAE has previously coordinated “sick outs” in which employees call out sick en masse. Last year, after the district failed to provide promised raises to classified employees, sickouts closed as many as a dozen schools over multiple days.
“We are going to follow up with you for contact information so you can contact your board members,” teacher and DAE member Jennifer Painter told the crowd in front of Jordan. “So thank you for coming today, and there is more that we’re going to follow up with you to do.”
At the bus lot behind Hillside High School later that day, only about 10 bus drivers and monitors donned their DAE red.
Veteran school bus driver Retha Daniel-Ruth’s yellow bus necklace pendant swung in the wind as she used a megaphone to rally for better pay and better conditions for transit workers.
“We don’t have proper restroom facilities. We don’t have a lounge for the drivers, and our trailer,” she said gesturing to the small modular unit in the parking lot, “is probably 150,000 years old.” (District leaders have discussed setting up a bus driver lounge.)
DPS bus driver wages currently start at $19.43 an hour, while GoTriangle salaries start at $20.64. Drivers also only work for 10 months a year and don’t get paid on days when schools close because of weather.
In the district’s initial budget draft, CFO Jeremy Teetor laid out the possibility of a $200 monthly local supplement for drivers (DAE has pushed back for $300) and board members have asked about the option of raising wages.
Daniel-Ruth has been working at DPS for nearly 40 years. She says that she’s tried to organize bus drivers before, with little success.
“But now that we have a whole big, giant community behind us and we’re behind them, now I feel like there’s some hope,” she told INDY. Still, many drivers and monitors walked past the practice picket without engaging with the DAE members who offered flyers and forms.
Daniel-Ruth called out to some of those workers over her megaphone, reminding them about Monday’s meeting with three more board members.
“Everybody in your car, I hope you’re going to be there. We’re looking for you. We’re fighting for you. So we don’t want to fight alone.”
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Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at chase@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.