By J.N. Cheney
As teachers at Mount Markham were engaged in a protracted struggle for a new contract, teachers from a neighboring district were engaged in their own dispute.
In 1975, teachers from the Richfield Springs district found themselves at odds with their School Board regarding their union contract, in some ways mirroring the issues being faced just 15 minutes down the road.
When this dispute began exactly, at least as far as could be found on the historical newspaper archives that I peruse, is unknown.
Evidently the RSCS teachers’ contract expired in July of that year not
unlike over in West Winfield, however no definitive answer is given as to when problems truly started to brew.
If the Mount Markham dispute is any indicator though, negotiations between the teachers and School Board in Richfield Springs most likely began around January or February of 1975, and the length of time spent negotiating is what fostered the conditions that created this split.
This is all speculative, but given similar stories and historical trends, this makes the most sense.
The source of the Richfield Springs Faculty Association’s grievances would stem from payment disparities.
According to a statement from the RSFA, members of the union felt that newly hired teachers with less experience being paid more than veteran teachers in the district was not only an unfair practice, but a form of discrimination.
Note that they never said new teachers shouldn’t necessarily be making what they are, but that they as more experienced and tenured teachers should be making more in line with their said experience.
In late August of that year, then-president of the RSFA Gene Beirne announced that the association would be initiating a two-part action as ...
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