Support the Responsible Contracting in Our Public Schools Act (SB1043/HB1175)
Despite the essential role that education support professionals and teachers play, too often they are impacted by a public school employer’s decision to subcontract and privatize essential school services that are typically performed by public school employees. When outside vendors and for-profit companies are providing essential school services rather than educators who know their students, schools, and communities, it can negatively impact workers, lead to disruption in essential school services that impact students and families, and degrade public transparency and accountability.
The Responsible Contracting in Our Public Schools Act (SB1043/HB1175) establishes key safeguards to protect students, families, communities, and educators from harmful privatization and subcontracting practices, including:
- Prohibiting the subcontracting of public school employees’ jobs during the term of a collective bargaining agreement.
- Creating a process for a public school employer to meet and consult with a local union before a decision is made to subcontract work or services performed by public school employees and negotiate the effects of that decision with the local union.
- Protecting employees and their families from economic harm by requiring a subcontractor to offer available employment to public school employees if they lose their jobs as a result of subcontracting.
- Preserving high-quality labor standards by prohibiting a subcontracting agreement from being approved primarily on the basis that savings will result from lower wages and benefits from the employees of a subcontractor.
Fill our the form below to urge your elected officials to support this important bill!