BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Bethlehem Area School District secretaries are one step closer to a new three-year contract after ratifying a tentative agreement with the district Thursday.
Teamster Local 773 Clerical and Secretarial Employees reached the agreement with BASD in a Wednesday evening bargaining session that was led by a state-appointed mediator.
The tentative agreement came about after a three-day strike that began Monday just as students were arriving back for the first day of school.
“The members at the end of the day were pleased with the agreement. Everybody wants more, but they were happy with what we got.”Dennis Hower
“The members at the end of the day were pleased with the agreement,” said Dennis Hower, president of Teamster Local 773. “Everybody wants more, but they were happy with what we got.”
Hower declined to share the union's Thursday vote tally for ratification, but said the agreement received significant member support.
“I am very appreciative of the successful ratification vote,” Superintendent Jack Silva said in a Thursday statement. “BASD clerical and secretarial workers are a very important part of our district’s success.”
Next, the proposed contract must go before the Bethlehem Area School Board for another ratification vote.
Hower said the tentative agreement includes 5% hourly pay increases for each year of the proposed contract. Secretarial and clerical workers currently earn $26.34 an hour.
Under the proposed agreement, 12-month clerical employees will see no changes to their health care costs, Hower added.
Clerical employees currently pay $520 annually for single-person coverage or $780 annually for family coverage, according to a summary document provided by BASD earlier this week.
If ratified by school directors, the tentative agreement would grant 12-month secretaries an additional two personal days, bringing the total to three, Hower said.
Under the tentative agreement, secretarial employees would maintain their existing 12 sick days and can earn up to 20 vacation days as in their previous contract.
If the proposed contract is approved by the school board, secretarial and clerical staff will receive retroactive pay under their new hourly rate dating back to July 1, Hower said. Their previous contract ended June 30.
Staff members received money from their union’s strike fund to cover the wages loss from their three-day strike earlier this week, Hower said.
“We really want to thank the community for their overwhelming support," Hower added.
If approved by the school board, the tentative agreement also establishes a labor-management committee with union and district representatives, as well as a state mediator.
The committee will meet at least three times each year of the contract to resolve any ongoing issues, Hower said.
If the proposed contract is ratified by school directors, labor management meetings will be scheduled to discuss two remaining issues that did not get resolved during bargaining, Hower said.
Those issues are related to filling vacancies and air-conditioning availability during the summer, he said.
Teamster Local 773 is asking the district to take seniority into account when secretaries apply for open roles in BASD.
The union is also asking BASD to keep air-conditioning on in the summer when members are working in the buildings.
Though these issues remain unresolved, Teamster Local 773 and BASD were able to find agreement on a number of matters in the tentative agreement that they had disagreed on just days earlier.
During negotiations, Local 773 requested BASD clerical staff receive a 14% hourly pay increase for this school year, a 5% increase for 2025-2026 and a 5% increase for 2026-2027, according to the summary document shared by BASD.
The district said it offered a 4% hourly pay increase for each year of the new contract.
The two sides were also at odds with their initial health insurance proposals.
The union requested no change in health insurance costs, whereas the district called for employees to pay $1 more per paycheck for single-person coverage and $1.50 more per paycheck for family coverage.
