Teachers schedule strike for Monday

GRANITE CITY, Ill. -- A federal mediator will meet with Granite City teachers and school administrators today to try to avert a strike.

Granite City School District 9 canceled Monday's classes after the 435-teacher union voted earlier this week to authorize a strike.

But the union says it's said all along there would only be a strike if there was no tentative agreement by Monday.

The mediator has been working with the school board and teachers union since the beginning of negotiations, school Superintendent Steve Balen said. The next meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. today.

Even if a tentative agreement is reached this weekend, there will be no school Monday and the earliest the board could have a special meeting to ratify such an agreement would be Tuesday, Balen said.

According to figures released by the school board Friday, the board has offered a one-year contract worth 5.5 percent, giving a first-year teacher compensation of $32,700, including retirement contributions.

The board says the union has asked for 6.5 percent a year for two years, meaning a first-year teacher would earn $34,300 in the second year of the contract.

Union spokesman Dave Comerford of the Illinois Federation of Teachers says the district has a $10.2 million surplus, that enrollment dropped by fewer students than anticipated this year, and that not all retired teachers were replaced.

The last time Granite City teachers went on strike was in 1987 in a work stoppage that lasted more than two weeks, Comerford said.