TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 (copyright 2009 Texas AFT)   Local Texas AFT Affiliates Use Consultation Process to Make Gains for All Employees   Several of Texas AFT's largest local affiliates over the years have been elected by teachers and other school employees to represent them in negotiations with their districts on employee compensation and educational policy. This year once again we have seen these locals score significant wins for all employees district-wide as their elected representative in this negotiating process known as "consultation."   Austin: For instance, our Education Austin affiliate in Austin ISD used the consultation process to ensure equitable pay raises for all certified and classified employees this year. The school district's draft budget presented to the school board at the beginning of August contained no pay raise for classified employees. Negotiating with the district administration, Education Austin won a raise of 3 percent for everyone, embodied in a formal, signed consultation agreement with the superintendent, which the school board then duly approved.   Education Austin's advocacy via the consultation process ensured that teachers, counselors, librarians, and other certified staff received raises of $950 plus a step increase of $100 to $600 depending on years of experience, with senior teachers receiving the largest raises. The local union used consultation to talk the administration and board into granting support personnel a comparable raise of 3 percent.   San Antonio: The San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, our affiliate in San Antonio ISD, also is the elected representative of all district employees in consultation, and the San Antonio Alliance likewise has put the consultation process to good use. The administration and school board in San Antonio agreed to give teachers an average increase of 4.9 percent this year. And once again in this case our local affiliate won the district's agreement on awarding the same percentage increase to support personnel. The San Antonio Alliance scored as well on health benefits, prevailing on the district to pay the full amount of a pending increase in premiums for health insurance under plans that cover the vast majority of employees.   Dallas:  The story is the same in Dallas ISD, where the Alliance-AFT, our largest affiliate with 9,000-plus members, takes the lead in the district's consultation process as the elected representative of both certified and support personnel. Earlier this year the Alliance-AFT used the consultation process as a megaphone to amplify the voices of teachers resisting misuse of student test scores in teacher evaluation and contract decisions. Thanks to the Alliance-AFT's effective advocacy, the school administration reversed course and dropped the objectionable proposal.   In back-to-school budget deliberations, Alliance-AFT, like its counterparts in Austin and San Antonio, has used budgetary savvy and its role as elected lead negotiator in consultation to fight for and win equitable salary improvements for all employees, including an overdue 3-percent raise for support employees and a raise averaging 3.4 percent for teachers and other instructional staff (with a minimum of $1,701 in most circumstances).   The moral of our story is twofold: It pays to have a local consultation policy that enables employees to vote in a democratic election for an organization to represent them forcefully in talks with school administrators. And it pays to elect one of Texas AFT's local affiliates as your consultation representative!