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Health & Fitness

BLOG: The Neshaminy Funhouse

Magician Ritchie Webb and his carnival of contract issues never fails to entertain.

Step on up, ladies and gentlemen, to The Neshaminy Funhouse!

Inside the doors you will experience The Hall of Mirrored Concessions, travel through the empty classrooms searching for negotiations! Finally,… boy folks you are in for a treat! Tonight, you are very lucky to witness our magician, Ritchie Webb, pull millions of dollars out of a hat! That’s right! Come right up with your tickets!  However, I must warn you, be careful of The NFT cave. Why folks, get caught in there and you’re likely to lose the shirt right off your back! 

Well, faithful followers of Thinkerbell.org, we need a minute of calm before we travel down this road. Recall the days of walking your kids to school and handing them to a beaming teacher, who would then lead the children by the hand into a bright, pretty classroom. Aaahhhhh...

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Ding! Ding!

Okay, now round three of The NFT Strike! First there were years of tension with NFT members and issue-dancing face-to-face negotiations. Round two held the beginning of the strike, a “harmonious” board meeting and then a day or two of NFT picketing. In the days after NFT members stopped showing up to picket, the ranks were filled in by union members from Verizon and a few retiree NFT members, then moved to the most visible location.

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A recent development was the NFT’s “officially-unofficial” offer to negotiate that included binding arbitration. A letter was posted on every Facebook page possible and sent to all the local media outlets by the NFT. They were agreeing to the school board’s offer of negotiating 24-hours a day. In the event that did not work out, after seven days they wanted to enter the binding arbitration process. "Offering binding arbitration is a first for any AFT (parent to NFT) union." (In actuality, NFT offered binding arbitration in 1993). The problem is, the school board never offered 24-hour a day negotiations. These board members have jobs to go to everyday. They don’t have time to go on strike and decide not to picket. They have work to do. 

The board wrote a letter to NFT officers stating they will consider the arbitration offer from NFT, thus beginning the 10-ban on striking. NFT may not strike and must show up for work on Tuesday. If they chose not to be in the classroom on Tuesday, the union and its members would have been in violation of Act 88. Violating Act 88 opens the possibility for termination of all striking members. President Ritchie Webb asked NFT President Louise Boyd to notify the board by noon Saturday of NFTs decision. The board emphatically rejected the 24 hour-a-day negotiations, as they never made this offer in the first place.

Saturday at noon came and went with not a word from the NFT. There are whispers that NFT is claiming their offer was not official, thus not binding and they can continue to strike. This was not stated officially during the weekend of this letter exchange.

The community was left dangling between: Did the NFT make an offer and run when they found out they made a huge mistake? Or was the offer only a PR ploy and never actually official.

The community waited through a another week of striking. During that week, NFT stated:

  1. The offer was not official, therefore not able to be covered under ACT 88
  2.  On CBS.com Louise Boyd, NFT president is quoted as stating Neshaminiy School Board did not respond to the NFT offer.

 

Maybe The Funhouse will have a whole new teaching faculty in a year. Maybe the same cast of characters will delight. Maybe resident fairy, Thinkerbell, will discover why her ability to cut and paste has made public NFT comments to the public disappear from internet pages.

One thing is certain, The NFT has definitely been promoted to clown brigade with all the tricks they’ve been playing.

Stay tuned for Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Neshaminy Board meeting, where NFT is will be bringing union Teamsters to strengthen their position.

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