In a flurry of legislative activity, legislators in both the House and Senate have introduced a number of bills that would greatly harm public education.

June 4, 2021

To: Members of the General Assembly

From: Jerry Jordan 

Re: Updated Legislative Positions

Type of Employment (W2 v 1099)

• Chart: This v. that

Wages & Compensation

• What you’re compensated for

  • Meetings

  • Mandatory trainings

  • Marketing events

  • Class prep (preclass, postclass)

• Sick pay

• Increases 

Employment Practices:

• Continuing Development

  • Training

  • Performance Reviews

• Class cancellation & subbing

  • Breakout doc: Emergency protocol

• Scheduling

• Marketing, advertising expectations

• Uniform requirements

1. What is a 1099 [Independent Contractor] vs a W-2 [Employee]?

• Independent contractors are hired as outside workers; meaning they are not considered part of the company and therefore do not have tax withheld by you.

• An employee is under contract to work for you as part of your company, which withholds taxes from the employee's wages. The way you treat an employee is governed by federal and state employment and labor laws.

2. Non-Compete & Non-Solicitation Expectations:

• Non Compete: In contract law, a non-compete clause, or covenant not to compete, is a clause under which one party agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition against another party. Some courts refer to these as "restrictive covenants.

• Non-solicitation: In contract law, refers to an agreement, typically between an employer and employee, that prohibits an employee from utilizing the company's clients, customers, and contact lists for personal gain upon leaving the company. 

[LINK]

• ExpectationsEmployees [W-2] - harsher punishments and can be sued by employers if breached.  
  Contractors [1099] - less harsher punishments if breached as burden of proof for non-solicitation / non-compete must be documented. Most courts in the United States will not enforce a non-compete clause when it places an unreasonable restraint on the independent contractors’ ability to work.

3. Compensation for Trainings, Meetings, Uniforms: 

• All trainings, meetings, and time spent performing work-related tasks should be compensated.

• Compensation must be equal to or exceed minimum wage, and should be paid in addition to the per-class rate.

• There is no such thing as an "optional" training or meeting.

• All of these should be paid and attendance enforced in a fair and equitable way. Paid trainings and meetings should be built into the contract with an agreed-upon rate of payment.

• Uniforms can not be required for independent contractors.

• If you are an employee your uniform should be provided free of cost. 

4. Compensation for time worked Cleaning and Managing the front desk:

• Employees performing work-related tasks MUST be compensated.

  • Compensation must be equal to or exceeding minimum wage. This includes cleaning of the gym/studio, managing a front desk, processing payments, making changes to client accounts outside on personal devices outside of the gym/studio, and programming/sequencing and playlisting. 

• Independent Contractors should be wary of time spent performing duties not explicitly outlined in their contracts and should feel comfortable asserting their knowledge of employment law when asked to fulfill a role closely resembling or identical to that of an employee. 

5. 

SLTs in Teacher Evaluations

LFT has proposed multiple bills this session that seek to protect teachers from having SLTs used in their evaluations this year. These SLTs were not designed for such an unprecedented and incredibly difficult year where schools closed without notice and students bounced between in-person and virtual instruction. Unlike in other states, teachers showed up again and again for our students and developed novel, innovative ways to help students throughout the pandemic. That's why thousands of teachers sent letters to the Senate Education Committee this session asking them to ensure that measures of student growth -- which were not designed for virtual learning or pandemic teaching -- could not be used to adversely affect teacher evaluations.

HCR 107 by Representative Gary Carter asked BESE to take all necessary actions to provide that teachers should be held harmless for measures of student growth used to evaluate teachers for the 2020-2021 school year. Despite the outcry from teachers, HCR 107 failed to pass out of the Senate Education Committee meeting today, with a tie vote. Senator Kirk Talbot, Senator Beth Mizell, and Senator Robert Mills voted against the resolution.

As Senator Jackson pointed out in the hearing, the legislature has passed bills to ensure schools, school districts, businesses, hospitals, and healthcare professions were held harmless this year. Why not teachers? Join us in thanking Rep. Gary Carter, Senator Katrina Jackson, Senator Mark Abraham, and Senator Cleo Fields for supporting teachers!

Threat to Collective Power Passes Senate Education Committee

There are six school districts in Louisiana where the district and the employees have entered into a collective bargaining agreement. House Bill 256 by Rep. Tarver seeks to undermine that relationship and allow potentially exploitative organizations to extract payroll deductions from employees. These organizations could make promises to "represent" and "advocate" for members but wouldn't actually be able to make good on those promises – leaving unsuspecting teachers and support staff left in the lurch.

Join us in fighting for the collective voices of Louisiana educators and ask your Senators to VOTE NO on HB 256.

Uninterrupted Planning Time PASSES House Education Committee

On Wednesday, June 2nd, Senate Bill 128 by Senator Jackson passed the House Education Committee. This bill would mandate that all teachers receive 45-minutes of uninterrupted planning time each day. Planning time could only be used for planning, specific training, or evaluations, and schools couldn't pull teachers to cover classes or attend additional meetings during this time. If passed, this wouldn't go into effect until July 1st, 2022, to give districts time to make the necessary changes to ensure that teachers get their guaranteed planning time. SB 128 is expected to come before the full House for a vote next week.

Bow, NH ~ June 4, 2021

There is no sugar coating this session. It has been hard. We have seen attempts to dismantle public education. We have had to fend off numerous attacks on labor and attacks on many of the issues that we care about. This is why it is important to take a moment and celebrate wins when you have them. On Thursday, the House voted against SB61, the so-called Right to Work bill. Not only did the house vote against it this year, but they also used a motion that does not allow it to be brought up next year either. We want to thank our brothers and sisters in labor for all their hard work and I want to thank YOU for your hard work. We know that wins don’t always come easy so take this moment and celebrate—you deserve it.

I wish we could offer you more than a moment but sadly Right-to-Work was not the only thing we are facing right now. As we said last week the Senate Finance Committee added vouchers to the budget. This week the full Senate voted to approve that measure. The next step in the budget process is for a committee of conference to be formed. During that committee of conference anything, including vouchers, is negotiable. We need the folks on the committee of conference to know that keeping vouchers in the budget is unacceptable.

Click here for this week's update

In This Issue 

1) Two Different Schools, Same District (Part 1)

2) Safe School Reopening Survey

3) Evaluation Rebuttal

4) Personal Day Buyback

5) NTU Scholarships

6) How to check if you are a member

AND MORE!!

City Union of Baltimore will hold our Annual Member Meeting, virtually, via Zoom, on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. We encourage every member to attend! The event is members-only, and registration is required.

Click 'MORE' to see a video of Walt receiving his reward, and his response!