Contract update

Nearly seven months after the UFT and the Department of Education entered into mediation in hopes of resolving the differences preventing the two sides from reaching a new contract agreement, mediation has failed.

The next step: preparing for fact-finding.

The New York State Public Employment Relations Board will appoint a fact-finding panel to hold hearings and make nonbinding recommendations designed to help the two parties reach a final settlement.

The most recent UFT contract expired on Oct. 31, 2009.

Under the state’s Taylor Law, which governs relations between management and public employee unions, all the terms of the expired contract continue in place until a new agreement is reached, except if there is a strike.