contract negotiations

I was on our last two contract negotiating teams & we recently completed & signed our current CBA this past September 2006. Our contract has the following benefits: starting salary of $9.30/hr with $0.50/hr raise each year for the 4 years of the contract; choice of 4 health insurance plans, including prescription drug plans - health insurance benefits for new employees which require co-pay for benefits; family coverage extended to employees hired before 2002 which requires co-pay for family benefits; 10 sick days/yr; 2 emergency days/yr; 1 personal day/yr for 1-10 years of service, 2 personal days/yr for 11 or more years of service; 4 paid holidays; new grievance language which limits the time period of responses for both parties; & there are some other minor benefits (leave of absence, educational reimbursement, fair representation in meetings) which may or may not benefit you. If you want to find out what a fair & equitable rate would be for your area, investigate living wage. Living wage is the amount of money estimated to maintain a household in your area. Try Googling "living wage" & then put in your area. You will get an average of what living wage should be. It may be a help to anyone in contract negotiations.

I am a para from Montana and we are negotiating our contract. We have been working without a contract since Sept. and it is not going well. One good thing is we have a great union and teacher support. We are now in mediations. We are asking to make as much as a high school graduate makes in out school district. Many of the Para's have went back to school and got their ASS degrees and the rest have passed a state test. The district can't hire any new Para's unless they have an ASS degree.We want to be paid for education the same as any other teacher in the district. They wouldn't pay a teacher a high school graduate pay, their education ensures them of a higher wage. Why not a Para's education?
Montana

How can a district take PA state unemployment from our paychecks when Pa paras can't get unemployment compensation during the summer months?

The one thing we would like to ask for is more sick days. PA Law says teachers can have 10 sick days paid, so why can't we? We would also like a cost of living raise, including more money to cover the cost of how much more we need to meet the increase in our share of insurance payment.

hi! I am from W. PA and our papa's (they call us personal care assistance,but have taken a test for parpa's and all passed) are also currently preparing for a new contract. i am on the neg. team. It seems that our biggest problem is that the school district does not want to pay us well for all the hard work that we do in a day. I work at a jr. high level and have an average of 8-9 students to work with in all my classes that i go into. we are ending our contract at $10 per hr. with no insurance benefits nor retirement plan from the district. does anyone know what the average rate is for our duties in pennsylvania??? HELP