Grievance settlement handled by P&C.
PEA Grievance 09:09:10, AR-2009-598
Amount: $45,000.00.
November 9, 2010
Grievance settlement handled by P&C
R.R. v. Plainfield Board of Education AR-2010-402
Amount: $43,300.00.
December 21, 2010
Grievance settlement handled by P&C
Arbitration handled by HH&R
P.G. v. Plainfield Board of Education, A-1599-09T2
Amount: $65,404.39.
March 8, 2011
Grievance settlement handled by P&C.
IMO J.B.
Amount: $7,500.00
At the January 10, 2012 Work and Study School Board meeting the school board ratified workman's compensation, grievances and legal settlements that had been adopted by the school board at their Executive Session Minutes. Adoption of these matters must go through public ratification, it is the law (not Maria's wishes, but the law). The council does it. PMUA does it (I think). Knowing about this matters allows the public to know:
1)if the district has employment issues that are taking considerable time to get resolved, this might be a sign of poor leadership or poor communication somewhere along the line,
2)how grievances, workers compensation and legal settlements are resolved as not all issues reach the point of settlement,
3)how money gets spent outside of the classroom (if more reasons please provide via the "c-box" below).
Today I will try to go here through the Plainfield public district's Grievance Process according to both of its unions, PEA and PASA. The first one is the teachers/staff union, the second one, PASA, is the administrators' union. (For the district's own Grievance policy click HERE)
PEA 2009-2012 approved contract by the school board says the following about Grievances:
A "grievance" is defined as an appeal by an employee, or the Association, or the interpretations, application, or violation of the policies, agreements and administrative decisions affecting them.
Procedure
Any grievance to be considered under this procedure needs to be initiated by the employee within forty-five (45) calendar days of the time the employee knew or should have known of its occurrence.
The contract then goes on to describe the different levels of a grievance complaint, there are four, from one to four, and each step is an escalation to the next higher level of administration until it reaches the school board. The use of an arbitrator is also explained.
On to the administrators' contract.
PASA 2008-2011 contract (there was a sidebar adopted after the contract was adopted, so I am not sure if this contract contains the added sidebar or not).
Grievances:
A "grievance" is defined as an appeal by an administrator or a group of administrators, or the interpretation, application or violation of policies, agreements and/or administrative decisions affecting them.
Procedure
Any grievance to be considered under this procedure must be initiated by the administrators within thirty (30) District work days of the time the administrator knew or should have known of its occurrence.
PASA contract also goes on to explain the 4 different escalating steps and under what circumstances an arbitrator will get hired.
With this said, working violations have taken place in the district, luckily for staff there is a mechanism to take care of these violations and the mechanism is used as you can see it above.
The settlements then are a confirmation that such working violations were found and thus the settlement addresses those found violations. In many occasions, if not all, settlements get adopted on Executive Session. By law, settlements are to be ratified on public. (See agenda HERE, page 38). One other thing to know about grievances is that just like contract negotiations, grievances are to have non-conflicted BOE members have a voting voice on them and unless there is an adopted Doctrine of Necessity, a school board member that has a conflict of interest should not be voting on this matters. This is what the language on a 2007 Doctrine of Necessity says (the currently posted one is not as specific):
WHEREAS, these conflicts of interest, which prohibit the members from participating in the consideration and/or approval contracts, memorandum of agreements, grievances and the like, has a crippling effect on collective negotiations and the efficient operation of the Board because there are not enough non-conflicted members enabled to vote and bind the Board
Because I am concerned with two things when it comes to grievances --working conditions within the school district and the expenses that come when settlements like the above occur, both issues affect students on a direct and an indirect manner--thus, I have the following questions:
1-Has the school board done an analysis of the grievances' trend to determine if this is a matter of looking at current policies and procedures that might need adjustments/amendments so there are no loopholes that might inadvertently violate our public school employees' working rights?
2-If this is a matter where administrative decisions have affected the employees' working rights, what has been done to address those administrative decisions so they don't get repeated?
Parents and community members have a right to know what has been done on regards to correct whatever causes grievances, especially if there is a large number of them within a short period of time. Keeping an eye for this kind of things will allow parents and community members to get a feeling of what kind of working environment the school district offers to employees, a good working environment where employees feel valued and appreciated can only result in a better environment for our community's kids that attend Plainfield public schools.
Comments, corrections, questions, and yes, critiques, are always welcome via the comment box. Next post is on Workers Compensation settlements.
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