Loudoun Teachers Aim To Become First In Virginia To Begin Contract Negotiations

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — Loudoun County Public Schools teachers are pushing the county school board to pass a resolution that would give all LCPS employees the right to collectively bargain their employment contracts.

At its meeting on Tuesday, the Loudoun County School Board is expected to discuss the resolution. Teachers are expected to show up in large numbers at the Loudoun County school headquarters to show their support for the resolution.

In late October, a majority of LCPS employees endorsed granting the Loudoun Education Association exclusive representation in collective bargaining negotiations with the county, moving the LEA members one step closer to becoming the first in Virginia to begin contract negotiations with a school division.

The LEA said Tuesday it has secured the approval of both the county’s certified and transportation school employees to move ahead with collective bargaining. Certified employees are teachers, counselors, psychologists and other workers who must earn certification to qualify for their jobs.

LEA President Sandy Sullivan submitted documentation of the majority approval to the Loudoun County School Board, which, under Virginia’s new collective bargaining law, now has 120 days to decide whether to pass a resolution and officially set the bargaining process in motion.

“Contract negotiations are a win for everyone in our schools,” Sullivan said in a statement Tuesday. “Students, communities, and educators all benefit because we’ll have a meaningful process to identify and solve problems, and we’ll be able to bring the expertise of the educators who work with our children every day to the table.”

SEIU Virginia 512, a local chapter of the Service Employees International Union, is also in the process of organizing Loudoun County government employees. In July, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors took a big step in its effort to grant collective bargaining rights to county employees.

The board voted 6-3 to direct county staff to draft an ordinance proposal for a collective bargaining policy. A final draft would still need to be approved by the board before any change would go into effect.

Collective bargaining rights allow workers to vote on whether to grant their union exclusive representation over a given working group in most negotiations. If a majority of workers in a working group vote in favor of the exclusive representation, all workers in that working group would be subject to that decision, even if they voted against it. A worker could still decline to join the union, and no worker will be forced to pay union dues.