PEABODY — Negotiations for a new teachers contract began 16 months ago, yet the city and Peabody Federation of Teachers still seem far from agreeing to a deal.
The contract expired Aug. 31, and teachers have now worked half the school year without a deal.
Teachers are the last of the city's 14 unions to settle on a contract; all the others agreed to contracts last summer that resulted in no pay increases for city workers.
"They are continuing to do their jobs and hoping that, with a new city administration, perhaps the climate has changed and we can make some progress," said Bruce Nelson, president of the teachers union.
The sides have not met since Aug. 16, and now a mediator has been brought in to help.
In a mediation session, the two parties are in the same building but different rooms, and the mediator, who is appointed by the state, shuffles back and forth between sides trying to hash out a deal. They have had one mediation session and plan another in the coming month.
While Nelson said talks between the union and school board have been "respectful," he said the mediator's role is "to take the personal element and emotional element out of the equation."
Neither side will say what the major stumbling blocks are in the negotiations.
Complicating matters is the city's change in mayors — the mayor is also the School Committee chairman — and the new law passed last year changing the way unions and municipalities negotiate health care benefits. That law hasn't gone into effect in Peabody yet, but it has hung over the negotiation, both sides said.
School Committee member David McGeney, who leads the negotiations for the city, said the drawn-out process is not unusual.
"This is not more difficult than in past years. The lines of communication are good, the relationship is good, and, quite frankly, that's why it's taking so long," he said.
"It can be misleading to people, because they think a quicker resolution means a more effective negotiation. That's not always true. What matters is the end result."
The last time the teachers and School Committee met to forge a new contract, talks began in January 2007 and went into mediation in May. The contract expired that summer, and teachers worked without a contract until the dispute was settled 15 months later, in the fall of 2008.
Under that most recent contract, teachers received a 2 percent retroactive raise for the school year that began in 2007, when no contract was in place; a 4 percent raise for the 2008-09 year; and a 3 percent raise in the 2009-10 school year.
The last time teachers worked without a contract in 2007, they staged demonstrations throughout the city to show their frustration. The union even took out a newspaper advertisement.
There has been little or no public show of emotion this time. That has to do with the "new economic landscape," Nelson said. "I think the teachers are just holding their collective breaths."
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