A newly formed school paraprofessionals union has filed a series of legal complaints against the Board of Education (BOE), asserting it engaged in anti-union conduct when school officials terminated three elementary school special ed paras, including one who was a leader in the union’s formation last spring. A fourth para was terminated in July.
The four paras who worked at the Mary Murphy Elementary school were told they lost their jobs because of anticipated “budgetary cuts,” a union official said. Nonetheless, nine new special ed job listings, including four at the elementary school level, were posted on the BOE website Aug. 1. The union asks that its members be restored to their jobs.
But Schools Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez said in an interview that these paras were “at will,” employees, meaning they can be fired for any reason. At the time, he noted, they were not unionized. They did eventually unionize, “but at the time when we had to make our reductions there was no seniority and no collective bargaining agreement.” There still isn’t.
Hernandez said the next step is “negotiating a contract.” The process is separate from the formal complaints the union lodged last week before the state’s Board of Labor Relations, a quasi-judicial agency that has the authority to resolve municipal and school labor disputes.
“Nothing prevents them from filing a complaint,” Hernandez said. “I don’t think there is merit to the complaint. Anybody who knows labor law knows that if there is no collective bargaining agreement in place, there is no claim.”
The complaints filed last Thursday with the labor board came roughly two months to the day after the new union was formed. Click here to read an earlier story on the firings.
The paras care for special ed children at Branford’s five public schools, often on a one-to-one basis. Their union representative says many paras plan to attend a BOE meeting scheduled for Wednesday night at the Walsh Intermediate School beginning at 7:30.
On June 15, the school system’s paraprofessionals, including teacher aides, voted to form a new union, one of the last school groups to do so. Branford administrators, teachers, nurses, clerical workers and custodians are all members of various unions. The following week the election was certified.
Annie MacDonald, a field organizer for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Local 222 of the Independent Labor and Police Union, said she had sought a second meeting with Hernandez to restore the paras to their jobs but her efforts failed.
“We wanted to work it out with them. They turned us down,” she said in an interview. “First Hernandez told us he would not meet with us until we formed an executive board. We formed an acting board.” They met.
MacDonald said a second meeting was supposed to be held with Hernandez last Thursday but he decided to “reconsider” it, she said. Hernandez recalled the conversation. “I said, Annie, there is no reason to meet again. What you want to meet with me for is to reinstate these individuals and these individuals will not be reinstated.” He told her they could apply for the newly posted jobs if they wanted to.
MacDonald said the union “wants to get off on good grounds, to bargain in good faith and work well together. But we feel if we can’t discuss this [the layoffs] we are going to need to go another route. That route would be to file a municipal prohibitive practices complaint, which we have now done.”
Board of Ed President Frank Carrano said he is not involved in this issue. A former union leader himself, Carrano said he was surprised the young union moved so quickly to file complaints. “I have spoken with the superintendent, and he feels secure and justified in the action he has taken.” Carrano did confirm that the BOE’s new outside counsel is the law firm of Shipman & Goodwin, the law firm Hernandez used when he served the Hamden public schools. Carrano said the law firm will handle the paraprofessional case.
The new union seeks a series of remedies from the labor board, including: Restraining the BOE from what it perceives to be anti-union behavior. Establishing meetings between the union and the BOE in order to start bargaining toward a contract. Restoring the four paras to their jobs. And requiring the BOE to produce a list of all paraprofessionals returning to the school district for the 2011-12 school year, including their assignments and their hours.
The complaint also asks that the BOE pay all costs associated with the filing the complaint, including possible legal fees and “any other remedy the labor boards believes to be just and proper.” If that request is granted the BOE could wind up paying its own legal fees as well as the union’s fees.
Colleen Ezzo, another union field organizer, said it “makes no sense for the BOE “to expend precious dollars on attorneys’ fees and in fighting the union.” The four paras, who have served long and successful terms, should be restored to their jobs, she said.
MacDonald told the Eagle that the three complaints will set in motion a series of hearings that could take a year or more to resolve.
Three of the four paras were fired between the week the union won the election and the week the election was certified. The union says once the election occurred all paras were represented by the union, even if it did not have a contract. The last firing came in July. The union was not told of this firing, MacDonald said. “They gave this para no notice at al.,”
“These paras would be perfectly able to fill any of those newly posted four positions,” MacDonald said. MacDonald believes that union activity at the Mary Murphy Elementary School was one reason for the firings. She also believes seniority is an issue.
In a prior interview, Anthony Buono, the principal of Mary Murphy, told the Eagle that seniority is not necessarily a factor in keeping a para in her job and that performance evaluations have not occurred for the past three years. “There have not been any formal evaluations,” he confirmed. “That is accurate.”
Buono told the Eagle that the special education paras were reduced because there was a decrease in the number of special ed children coming to Murphy this fall.
New jobs for special ed paras were posted because “we have new needs,” Hernandez said, not an uncommon development each school year. Those who lost their jobs last spring are not on any sort of recall, he added, but they are encouraged to apply. “I have told Annie to tell them to apply,” he said.
It is not yet known if Murphy is the school seeking the new special ed paras before schools open Sept 1. Hernandez said he was not in the office when we spoke and did not know either.
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