SEIU 1021 on the Vacaville School District Win and Workplace Violence

Barbra Lynn Hamilton, Chapter President of the Service Employees International Union Local 1021's Vacaville Unified School District chapter, and Shelly Martin, union steward and paraprofessional, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to describe a contract fight that nearly became a strike — and what it took to finally move a district that had refused to bargain for nearly a year.

After 200-plus members showed up to a school board meeting, delivered a strike vote and put the board on notice, the district miraculously found money between Thursday evening and Friday morning.

A two-year contract covering more than 720 classified professionals has now been signed. But the underlying problems — chronic understaffing, a significant increase in workplace violence in just one year, a Cal/OSHA investigation and a cost-of-living challenge that kept members from living anywhere near work — remain the frame around a victory that both guests describe as a beginning, not an ending.

• Workplace violence reports in the Vacaville Unified School District jumped from 67 the prior year to 266 this year. It’s an increase that both Hamilton and Martin said is an undercount because a departing assistant superintendent was actively discouraging staff from filing reports. A Cal/OSHA investigation is now underway, and the district's task force — created in the previous contract — has been slow to investigate incidents and implement preventive measures before affected students and staff return to the same classrooms.
• The understaffing crisis is directly connected to student and staff safety. The Paraprofessionals and behavior assistants who work one-on-one with special needs students provide the behavioral and emotional support that keeps classrooms stable. When those positions go unfilled — while the district ended the year 31 percent over budget, yet hired more administrators — students in crisis have nowhere to turn, incidents escalate and staff are left exposed to preventable harm, the pair explained.
• Hamilton also explained that due to the cost-of-living in the area, she had to commute three hours a day for three years. She was priced out of Vacaville, despite being near the top of the classified salary schedule. She has since moved back, but must live with someone else. Meanwhile, substitute employees in the district were being paid less than fast food workers, driving subs to better-paying neighboring districts and compounding the staffing shortage the chapter is fighting to address.

No Contract, No Peace — and Then a Contract

Barbra Lynn Hamilton has been chapter president of the SEIU Local 1021 Vacaville chapter for six years and a school district employee for over 23. She has seen the district drag its feet before. When she took over as chapter president, she decided that the chapter was done agreeing just to agree. Whatever the district had been holding back — wages, staffing, safety responses — the chapter would fight for it.

The latest battle began about a year and a half ago and included nearly 10 months of bargaining, but the district repeatedly refused to engage seriously on salary and staffing. The chapter responded with escalating pressure. A strike assessment came first, polling members on their willingness to act. Then came the strike vote — overwhelmingly yes. Next came the school board meeting, where more than 200 members and community supporters showed up. Hamilton told the board plainly: "We have a strike vote, and if the district is not going to negotiate, we will use it.”

Between Thursday evening and Friday morning, the district found money it had previously claimed did not exist. Negotiations resumed the next day, and the chapter got everything it had asked for. A two-year contract covering more than 720 classified professionals has been signed. Hamilton is not celebrating without acknowledging what it took to get there — and what remains unresolved.

Understaffing, Special Needs Students and Classroom Safety

The staffing crisis in the district creates real problems. Paraprofessionals work one-on-one with students — including students with significant behavioral and emotional needs — providing the direct support that allows teachers to teach and students to learn. Behavior assistants work alongside the paraprofessionals and teachers, specifically to help students in crisis understand and manage what is happening to them. When those positions go unfilled, the scaffolding that keeps a classroom stable disappears.

Hamilton described what follows. Students whose emotional needs are not being met reach crisis more quickly. Behavioral incidents escalate. Other students and staff are placed in harm's way. The district's response — hiring more administrators while freezing or eliminating the positions that actually work with children — is the direct cause of the safety failures the chapter has been documenting.

The district recorded 67 reports of workplace violence in the prior school year. This year's count is 266. That total is an undercount, Martin said, claiming a departing assistant superintendent had been actively discouraging staff from filing reports, and the behavior assistance team in particular had been told to think twice before submitting.

A Cal/OSHA investigation is now underway. The district's own safety task force — a mechanism the chapter won in its previous contract — has been failing to investigate incidents promptly or put preventive measures in place before the same students and staff return to the same classrooms, Hamilton said. The gap between what the contract requires and what the district is actually doing in terms of safety is the reason for the investigation, she added.

The Cost of Living Behind the Numbers

Martin and Hamilton both addressed the cost-of-living reality that impacts every staffing problem. Vacaville is in northern California, near the Napa Valley. It’s an area where housing costs have long outpaced public sector wages. The chapter's lowest-paid employees, substitutes, were being paid less than area fast food workers, causing them to take better-paying positions in neighboring districts. This compounds the vacancy problem that the chapter is fighting to resolve at the bargaining table.

While Hamilton is near the top of the classified salary schedule, she spent three years commuting three hours a day — an hour and a half each way — because she could no longer afford to live in Vacaville. She has since moved back, but saves money by living with someone else. Workers putting in full days in demanding, sometimes dangerous environments, then having a long commute, are not workers with much left to give. Martin added that numerous union members work two or three jobs to make ends meet.

What Comes Next

The district's unwillingness to convene productive leadership meetings has led the union to redirect its energy into formal filings, Hamilton said. Charges of unfair labor practice against the district are in process, and more are coming. Hamilton promised the chapter will keep filing until management responds.

Martin closed with a message about students. As the parent of a special needs child herself, she said the conditions she has described should not be accepted by any informed parent. The chapter is fighting for classified professionals, but the reason those positions matter is the students. Both guests said the work is not done. It is just beginning.

More information on SEIU Local 1021 is available at seiu1021.org.

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