AG board, teachers approve contract to end bargaining impasse
YORK RUN — The Albert Gallatin Area School District and its teachers’ union ended a collective bargaining impasse Tuesday when the two parties voted to ratify a new contract.
In separate votes occurring moments apart Tuesday evening, the school board and union membership each approved a proposed five-year contract, putting an end to a lengthy labor dispute in the district.
District teachers had been working without a contract for nearly 14 months.
The new contract is retroactive to Aug. 15, 2018, which marked the expiration of the teachers’ previous collective bargaining agreement.
Terms of the contract were not immediately available to the Herald-Standard.
The school board voted 8-1 in a special meeting to ratify the contract. Board President Janet Swaney cast the lone opposing vote.
Amanda Riley, president of the Albert Gallatin Education Association representing approximately 230 district teachers, guidance counselors and nurses, said following the board vote, “I felt that we reached what we felt to be an appropriate and fair compromise and deal for all parties involved.”
Prior to Tuesday’s resolution, negotiations for a new contract had been ongoing since January 2018 and saw the two sides failing to reach an agreement through fact-finding last summer when the union twice rejected a report that would have formed the basis for a four-year contract. Earlier this year, the teachers’ union also rejected a tentative three-year agreement that had been reached between the bargaining teams and ratified by the school board.