11-12-93 At the October 26 Acton-Agua Dulce School Board meeting, the contract for the classified workers in the school district was placed before the board after a public hearing. It was done in the normal fashion for this board, which has been to negotiate in secret and then to present it before the community as an accomplished fact.
This time the school board took on a new complexion, listened to the public testimony and comments and made three significant changes in the contract: The Board approved the following changes:
1- eliminated the union shop portion of the contract, making it an open shop where a person may join any union of his choice or no union at all.
2- put language in clearly stating that the School Board had total control of the use of volunteers to maintain, construct, and operate the school, with the only restriction that volunteers could not displace a classified worker if there were funds in the budget to pay for that classified worker. In support of the classified union’s position for their control of volunteers, Jesse Farmer spoke and he welcomed the volunteers in the community and certainly knew we needed the help, but he was concerned that volunteers could cost jobs. He was assured by the Board that as long as there was money available to employ people they certainly preferred to have hired employees to doing the work and only look to community assistance where there are no funds to do the job.
3- made the only source for repayment of the claimed "back pay" (the wages allegedly owed to the unions for the final 7% that was only briefly paid to them which they agreed to forgive until there was money available to pay them). The language in the union contract stated this money would be paid out of any Cost of Living Increase (COLA) and any increased general fund. The “any general fund increase” was a hot subject of debate when Bruce Nahin asked the union “What if Bill Gates gives us one million dollars to bring water into Wallace Canyon, does that mean the union would want that money for their salaries?” The union representative said yes that they would want that for their salaries.
Carol Finck, the CESA union representative, exclaimed, possibly in shock, that she wouldn’t even take this contract back to the employees. An unidentified person in the union group said that this contract was "a done deal" with Tom Brown and "what is the School Board doing changing the deal"?
Both of these statements show that the union is far removed from the real world, because they don't understand that Mr. Brown is an employee of the School Board, but when the Board hears from the community in public comment that they don’t like something, then it is within the Board’s authority to make changes to reflect what the residents who actually operate the schools say.
Apparently this meeting was a major shock to the union compared to the teachers’ contract just a few months ago where only Lori Browing voted against the contract What has the same identical problems. Although in the case of the teachers’ union, the union representative stood up and explained that “any increase in the general funds meant only a COLA and they didn’t intend to take books away from the students”.
The teachers' union current position will be the subject of a later story, but as you may guess they’ve changed positions. All the decisions by the School Board were unanimous with the sole exception of the union shop issue when Nahin voted in favor of leaving the union shop provisions in place.
It is assumed the union will accept this contract because they are some of the highest paid classified workers in the County, and the highest in North LA County. Since no pay cut was issued against the employees and there does not seem to be very strong unionism for the union shop issue, that seems to be an employee decision, we’ll see what they do. More to follow.
Ray Rowley, the president of California School Employees Association chapter 473, covering the Acton area, complains that he wants volunteers used in the School only after the district restores work time cuts from employees by budget cuts. He did not state how he expects the district to pay for employees when the state doesn’t give the school board the money in the first place. His union refuses to allow community volunteers in the schools until we re-higher all employees which have been laid off do to budget cuts.
Rowely also stated in an article published in the Daily News, written by Sharon Smith, that the union represents 71 custodians, clerical workers, and maintenance workers but only has 22 dues paying members. The district did right in drooping the union shop demand if only 29% of the employees are dues paying members.
As to the right of the citizens to repair their schools, one must remember who owns the schools and they certainly aren’t owned by chapter 473 of the California School Employees Association.