"The chances of it (a strike) being avoided are very slim at this time," said Nyla Houser, president of the 850-member Pennsbury Education Association union, on Tuesday morning.

At Monday night's meeting, both sides made contract proposals, but the state mediator, Jill Leeds-Rivera, called the meeting after no further progress was made.

Houser declined to say whether the picket lines would go up by Friday. However, according to state law governing teachers' strikes, written notice of intent to strike must be delivered to the school superintendent "no later than" 48 hours prior to the start of an action.

The last Pennsbury strike was in 1976, when teachers were out for 6-1/2 weeks. Nuzzolo was working for Pennsbury then, but in a different capacity. He said the strike led to Act 88, the Pennsylvania law governing negotiations and strikes.

Sticking points in the negotiations Monday night remained how much teachers would have to pay to continue their current health-care programs vs. the amount of salary increases, and the school board's refusal to include an early retirement incentive in this year's contract.

Houser said Tuesday morning that the PEA had presented figures at the meeting that showed how the retirement incentive for the district's senior teachers would save the district "over a million dollars per year...in the next three years, but they don't see it as a savings and we don't understand why.

She said rate increases in the medical insurance plans offered by both Aetna and Keystone "have gone up so high" that the school board can't afford them, and that the teachers understand that.

But, she said, the union's plan would offer the 110 teachers who are on those plans "options that they don't have right now under their (the school board's) proposal."

The teachers' early retirement plan called for, among other things, $8,000 per year being placed in a 403b plan for healthcare reimbursement; 10 years of payment; and salary "to be funded by savings from Early Retirement Incentive" at 2.85 percent on scale each year.

The union also wants the Blue Cross Blue Shield Personal Choice 10/20/70 plan with teacher contributions at 6, 7 and 8 percent caps, with PC Option 7 contribution at 10, 11 and 12 percent and prescription and dental at 6, 7 and 8 percent.

The district's proposal called for a prescription plan with a $10/$20/$35 co-pay formulary and a core medical plan that would be the Blue Cross Blue Shield Personal Choice 10/20/70 plan at 10 percent, 12 percent and 14 percent with no caps.

Contributions for all other medical plans would be based on the Personal Choice 10/20/70 contribution, with the teachers to pay 100 percent of the difference between the two plans.

Salary increases by the board were .5 percent on steps 0-4, 1 percent on steps 5-9, .5 percent on steps 10-12 and a 1.5-percent increase for step 13. Steps are the teacher experience levels.

"We have no problem helping to pay for our health care, but it seems unfair to us to take a cut in pay in order to maintain" whichever health-care plan each teacher uses, Houser said prior to Monday night's meeting.

Houser said union members had mixed reactions to the school district's publishing, on its website (www.pennsbury.k12.pa.us), of the old and new contracts last week. "We felt the tactic was designed to run the community against us," she said. "We had been told by the state mediator not to discuss it. It's standard practice not to release details until all teachers have had a chance to know the contract-offer details.

"We had wanted to not tell the details to the media so it would not become a media negotiation. That's what we had assumed our instructions were," she said.

"If you take Personal Choice 7 (from Blue Cross Blue Shield) or Aetna HMO or the Keystone HMO, we will bring home less money. If you choose to take the lesser one that they're offering, you could make out a little better.

This is cache, read story here