More than 150 educators, district staff, parents and students rallied outside the Berkeley Unified School District\u2019s regular Wednesday board meeting, calling on the district to settle stalled labor contracts with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, or BFT.\u00a0<\/p>\n
BFT has been demanding higher salaries to counteract rising health care costs since last year.<\/p>\n
Bargaining between the union and the district for a new contract began in March 2025, according to BFT\u2019s website. While tentative agreements have been reached on some noneconomic issues, disagreement over proper compensation and health care benefits remain unresolved.<\/p>\n
Currently, the district covers 56% of educator health care costs. BFT is pushing for 100% of its health care costs to be covered, citing rising costs in medical insurance.<\/p>\n
Negotiations have been stalled since Nov. 20, 2025, when the union and the district declared a joint impasse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHealth care has gone up double digits year over year. Our pay has not kept up with those increases, and we bear the burden of those increases,\u201d said BFT President Matt Meyer. \u201cWhat we need is a district to come to the table with real ideas about how our take-home pay can stop being reduced year after year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conflict reached a head at Wednesday\u2019s meeting, when protesters flooded into the room, chanting, \u201cWhat do we want? Fair pay! When do we want it? Now!\u201d and holding signs that read \u201cFighting for fair pay!\u201d and \u201cWe can\u2019t wait!\u201d<\/p>\n
Members from the other three employee unions in the district, which represent administrators, support staff and managerial staff, were also in attendance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t just support our fellow unions. We stand in solidarity because their fight is our fight,\u201d said Paula Phillips during public comment. Phillips is the co-Chair of the Berkeley School Administrator\u2019s chapter of IFPTE Local 21, which represents managerial employees.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, numerous teachers expressed concern that they may be forced to leave their district and the profession as a whole, citing financial strain as a driving force behind low teacher retention.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caety Klingman, an English teacher at Berkeley Technology Academy, alleged that she makes less than almost any other teacher in the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a master\u2019s degree in teaching, and I make $50,000 less than the average Bay Area employee with a master\u2019s degree,\u201d Klingman said during public comment.\u00a0 \u201cI love my students and the academic freedom the BUSD provides, but I honestly do not know if I can financially afford to stay in this district.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Meyer, the union hopes to avoid a strike but warned that members are prepared to do so if the district cannot deliver concrete proposals that meet their demands.<\/p>\n
As of press time, the district has not responded to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meyer said a fact-finding hearing \u2014 in which an impartial third party works to settle disputes from both sides \u2014 is now necessary. The hearing is set to take place Feb. 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 150 educators, district staff, parents and students rallied outside the Berkeley Unified School District\u2019s regular Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[46144,80411,6765,80410,80409,49125,143,145,144,80408],"class_list":{"0":"post-166877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-berkeley-federation-of-teachers","9":"tag-berkeley-technology-academy","10":"tag-berkeley-unified-school-district","11":"tag-caety-klingman","12":"tag-local-21","13":"tag-matt-meyer","14":"tag-oakland","15":"tag-oakland-headlines","16":"tag-oakland-news","17":"tag-paula-phillips"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}