Issaquah Schools Staff Sets Date For Strike

ISSAQUAH, WA - Some Issaquah School District staff could go on strike as early as Tuesday if union negotiators and the district don't reach an agreement over cost-of-living (COLA) raises.

On Jan. 15, paraeducators and school support staff voted to go on strike. The workers are represented by two separate unions.

The strike committees of the Public School Employees of Washington SEIU Local 1948 and SEIU 925 on Thursday voted to set Tuesday as the strike deadline.

The two unions say the district owes workers COLA adjustments. But the district says the state is supposed to pay for those wage adjustments -and the state did not provide Issaquah with those funds for the 2018-19 school year.

In a press release, SEIU Local 1948 representatives said the district and the unions would meet over the weekend to negotiate.

“We’ve been working for almost five months without our full paycheck,” Emily Freet, assistant to the Maple Hills Elementary principal and a union president, said in a press release. “The district is refusing to honor the contract that we negotiated, and we can no longer sit back and allow them to ignore us. The COLA they promised would benefit some of the lowest paid school employees so that we can continue to provide exceptional support for the students we know and love.”

ISD spokeswoman Lorraine Michelle sent a statement to Patch on Tuesday saying the district was surprised that the unions voted to strike.

"We have contracts with both that include language that outlines the process by which disagreements are to be resolved. At this point, the grievance process outlined in the contracts, that were mutually agreed to, has not yet been completed. According to these contracts, the next step is arbitration," the district statement read.

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