Posted on 06/18/2005 9:20:15 PM PDT by Born Conservative
“I want to make it perfectly clear that no member of the Crestwood Education Association has resigned from their position.” John Holland Pennsylvania State Education Association Northeast Region representative
WRIGHT TWP. – A teachers union official has penned a letter denying that any Crestwood teachers have resigned, but the school board president and solicitor aren’t buying it, sticking to their argument that an earlier letter signaled a mass resignation in the midst of bitter contract dispute.
Pennsylvania State Education Association Northeast Region Representative John Holland sent a letter Friday to school board Solicitor Jack Dean saying “I want to make it perfectly clear that no member of the Crestwood Education Association has resigned from their position.”
Holland referred to a June 14 letter to Superintendent Richard Duffy from Crestwood union President Joseph Chmiola Jr. In that letter, Chmiola noted the union has worked without a contract since 2002 and said that without a new contract “we will be unwilling to work the 2005-2006 school year.”
On Thursday, school board President Bill Jones and Solicitor Jack Dean said the “unwilling to work” comment clearly constituted a “mass resignation,” and that the board is prepared to accept those resignations at a special meeting June 28, then advertise to fill all of the vacant positions.
Holland’s retort denounced such action as “irresponsible” and “reckless,” adding that “the school board should not threaten the school member employees with the loss of employment” in an effort to reach a contract agreement. In a separate letter to Superintendent Duffy, Holland said the board “purposely misled the public” about the union’s intentions and said interpreting the letter as a mass resignation would be viewed as a “lockout of the staff” leading to legal action.
Holland also said Chmiola’s letter was not a notice of a strike, as required by state law, though he did warn that a strike is likely at the start of the school year if a new contract is not reached.
“The purpose of Mr. Chmiola’s letter was to advise the Crestwood School District that the parties are at a critical juncture and that the Crestwood School Board needs to engage in good faith efforts” to reach a contract agreement this summer, Holland wrote.
In a phone interview Friday, Chmiola echoed that sentiment, pointing out that his letter “was not a resignation letter because it never said the words ‘resignation’ or ‘resign.’ ” He also said he does not have the authority to submit a resignation for anyone but himself, and that he was not resigning either.
Dean and Jones disagreed. “You don’t have to use the word resigned to quit,” Dean said. “If it’s not a strike notice or a resignation, what is it? (Chmiola) said ‘unwilling to work,’ and I’m very comfortable under case law that that’s a resignation.”
Dean said his interpretation is bolstered by the fact that, as of Friday afternoon, “we have received at least one letter from a teacher rescinding the resignation. So if it wasn’t a resignation, why do members choose to rescind it?”
The June 28 meeting had originally been called to give final approval to next year’s budget, and that will still happen, Dean said. But the board will have at least two other resolutions, one accepting the mass resignation and another accepting letters rescinding any resignation. If that happens, the board would then vote to advertise to fill any vacancies.
Dean said current teachers could apply for the jobs. “Everyone who is qualified can put an application in.”
The only way to reverse the mass resignation, Dean insisted, is for the union to send a letter essentially rescinding it for everyone.
Chmiola said he had hoped Holland’s letter had clarified the issue and that it would be the final word, but doubts that will happen. “Somehow, I get the feeling we may be playing word games and semantics for the next couple of days. I can’t understand how they construed the last letter this way.”
Dean said there was nothing to misconstrue.
“No matter what they do, they can’t get around what they wrote.”
Here is the text of a June 17 letter from Pennsylvania State Education Association Northeastern Representative John Holland to Crestwood School Board Solicitor Jack Dean.
Dear Attorney Dean:
I am writing in response to your statements that the Crestwood Education Association has submitted a letter of mass resignation.
First, Mr. Chmiola’s letter clearly does not state nor suggest the resignation of any individual or group of individuals within the Crestwood School District. I want to make it perfectly clear that no member of the Crestwood Education Association has resigned from their position, nor has, nor could the Crestwood Education Association resign any individual from their position within the Crestwood School District. The school board should not threaten the school member employees with the loss of employment in an effort to reach a successor agreement.
Second, I also want to make it perfectly clear that the letter is not to be construed as a strike notice. Should the Crestwood Education Association exercise its rights to engage in a strike, we will notify the district as required under the provisions of Act 88.
The purpose of Mr. Chmiola’s letter was to advise the Crestwood School District that the parties are at a critical juncture and that the Crestwood School Board needs to engage in good faith efforts to reach a successor agreement during the summer months.
Suffice it to say, no individual, nor the Association wants to engage the district in a strike; however, should the district continue to engage in its underhanded tactics, unfortunately, a strike becomes a strong possibility.
Again, Mr. Chmiola’s letter is fair notice that the district needs to bargain in good faith with the association as outlined by Act 195 and Act 88. This is the district’s legal obligation. I suggest that the Crestwood School District focus on what is most important, that they provide for the education and welfare of its students
Finally, it is irresponsible that the Crestwood School District engages and continues to engage in such reckless behavior
Sincerely,
John J. Holland.
So they've basically gone from doing nothing to...doing nothing?
In other words, work with us or we'll resign. The school board called the union's bluff. Good for them.
Now this is what I call educational reform in a good way.
Gee seems like the Union/teachers might be coming round to the idea that they can be replaced. Remember folks that this labor dispute over teachers paying for part of their health insurance A couple of years ago a nurse at my job told the boss that if things didn't get better he was going to quit. The next morning he was called to the office and my supervisor told him the she accepted his resignation. Threats from staff really don't go over well. I looked at the salary structure of teachers in this district and it was 38,000 to over 100,000 a year which isn't chicken feed. So I ask a question, is this teacher's union doing them any favors? The school board is serious about hiring new teachers. I can't imagine a teacher earning this kind of money would face looking for new job to avoid picking up some of the cost of insurance. I wonder who is going to flinch first.
I suggest that the Crestwood School District focus on what is most important, that they provide for the education and welfare of its students
_______________________________________
After looking at that pay scale for the teachers, it's very clear that the TEACHERS/UNION is NOT focusing on the education and welfare of the students! Instead they are using the education and welfare of the students like a gun to the Parents/Schoolboards head!
I would go with the acceptance of the mass resignation and look for new hires. There are probably a lot of young substitute teachers who have been trying to find a decent job, but have been closed out because of their "connections". The mortgage companies and the car loan companies will catch up with the resignations!!
A good time to change the oil!!
This statement is clearly a resignation. End of story.
Thanks for posting this follow-up.
(By the way, could you please add my name to your ping list?)
It is refreshing to see a school board stand up and say to the parasite teachers, "No. The taxpayers are NOT going to pay for YOUR health-care insurance anymore. Buy your own stinking insurance just like most of the taxpayers have to."
I'll have to say that basically free health coverage for teachers and their families has been instilled in the profession for a long long time. To start making them pay for some of it will draw their ire and they think that the administration will be under the gun when school starts to give in to their demands. The taxpayer needs to stand up and show support for the administration even if it means firing all the teachers. I don't for a minute believe union babble about there being a teacher shortage. I am sure that a call for replacement teachers would turn up so many that some would even have to be turned away.
In the air traffic controllers case with Reagan, the government fired individual workers who refused to come to work (went on strike). The idea that a third party could "resign" you is ridiculous, and whatever the crimes of the CEA (which I'm sure are many), this interpretation by the school district is a severe power-grab. I can't think of any case where my employment could be terminated by anyone other than me or my employer... regardless of membership in any other organizations. Any other conclusion isn't American (not that this will stop the resident education-bashers here)...
The fact that nominal conservatives are willing to give unions even more power in order to bash education is scary (especially if you are in non-right-to-work states, where union membership can be mandated)...
IIRC,
Management is required to bargain for certain topics. Compensation and hours of work are two mandatory subjects.
Conditions of work are not.
During contract negotiations, management cannot lock out workers for issues on those subjects.
Management said we want you to concede your health care benefits, and the union said "No Way!!!"
They probably have clauses that specify how that kind of mediation will take place and IF I WERE TO GUESS, management fears mediation, that may say you have done full health care in the past, this is regressive negotiation.
Regressive negotiation is an UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICE and subject to labor law.
Fighting this in the media is a ploy. Neither side is giving the correct information.
Tactics only. The line teacher is caught up in this insanity.
DK
The whole idea of collective bargining is that the union speaks for its members. I know this often NOT the case, but that is the theory.
In any case, the school board has allowed each individual teacher to personally withdraw from the mass resignation. No harm, no foul.
Not if state licensure requirements aren't changed. The dirty little secret is that many otherwise qualified individuals are prohibited from teaching because they haven't jumped through all the bureaucratic hoops (including education coursework). It's an artificial shortage.
Besides, the issue isn't hiring teachers; it's retention. VA instituted a program for career-switchers that waived a bunch of the bureaucratic garbage for people from other professions (in order to address the shortage). The average stay of a new teacher is 3 years; most of the career-switchers are gone in less than that. Despite the popular notion here, teaching is not an easy job (especially when you actually care about students and their learning), and the modern hassles prove to be a lot more daunting than most prospective teachers realize. The first time you have a kid cuss you to your face, then have nothing happen to him (because the administration is afraid to discipline kids... due to overbearing parents and linguini-spined school boards), that cubicle in ACME Mortgage Co. starts looking better every minute. That's only one of a dozen reasons that new teachers bail, but they bail faster than they can be replaced (especially in the sciences or in mathematics, where a Masters degree can be parlayed into much more money in the private sector).
Walk a mile in my shoes before you convince yourself that teachers could be replaced en masse...
It's the principle that is the danger. What if the school board didn't allow this (which is easy enough)? So a third party could declare you to have resigned from your job? That turns US contract law on its head!
Not even the most fervent Democrat would state that a union has the power to force a member to resign from his job, but now that power is being given to unions by this case, and with applause from conservatives even! This is a massive increase in union power, all because a self-serving school board doesn't have the guts to fight this out (I'm not saying the school board is in the wrong on the specifics of the contract parameters, just that they are taking the easy way out with this "mass resignation" crap). Now, imagine how this could be misused if it is allowed to stand. In a state where union membership is mandatory, no union member could ever break a strike, as the union could just declare that person to have resigned (against their will even). Not good...
There is NO teacher shortage around here. The typical elementary position has several hundred applicants (although there may be some areas where there is a shortage, such as physics).
this interpretation by the school district is a severe power-grab
No, it's a stance against a money-hungry teacher's union. Do you know of any employer that still pays 100% of it's employees' health care premium? Yet this teacher's union (PSEA) is digging in hard to keep this perk, at the expense of the taxpayers.
Check your FReepmail.
PING! Amen.
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