Dear NYSUT Officers,
On behalf of the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association, I wish to alert you to our concern about your approach to the NYSUT/PSA negotiations. It appears to the PJSTA that you are needlessly and recklessly creating a dispute with the bargaining unit and, as a consequence, threatening the services provided to the PJSTA on a daily basis. We ask that you treat PSA with the respect it deserves and work diligently to find solutions to this contract dispute that will not imperil the delivery of NYSUT services to my local by the PSA staff.

The PJSTA is also concerned about your misrepresentation of NYSUT’s financial situation at the most recent Representative Assembly, where no mention of any pension crisis was mentioned. I know that the officers are provided routine reports on the NYSUT pension as required by law, so we are confused as to why the long-term pension cost suddenly became a crisis. Your actions leave the PJSTA wondering where the truth lies and whether we can trust your financial representations to your dues-paying members.

It is our expectation that you work with PSA in a way that would be viewed as a model to the labor movement and refrain from adopting the tired and unproductive behavior of our worst employers. We demand that you work to conclude this contract dispute in a way that will not further embarrass that PJSTA and will not interrupt the crucial services that PSA members provide.

In Solidarity,

Beth Dimino, PJSTA President