SOUTH BURLINGTON – The city’s acting superintendent, a staunch supporter of the just-ousted former superintendent, is clearly retaliating against the city’s teachers’ union co-president by launching – and announcing publicly – a bogus “investigation,” the union asserted in an unfair labor practice charge filed with the Vermont Labor Relations Board late Wednesday.
“The clear intent of [Acting Superintendent Kristin] Romick’s actions are to harass, threaten and intimidate the union president for the work that she did on behalf of her 400 union members,” the filing said, referring to the South Burlington Educators’ Association’s year-long effort to oust the former superintendent. “Not only are the employer’s actions discriminatory they are ‘inherently destructive’ in their anti-union motivation.”
The city’s former superintendent resigned last month after a lengthy union effort to demonstrate how she had lost the trust of the city’s educators. The union conducted a “listening tour” and gathered the thoughts of more than 300 of the union’s members. Romick, installed last week as acting head of the school system, was a close ally of the former superintendent. She publicly announced her “investigation” at a recent South Burlington School Board meeting.
Romick’s “clear intention is to retaliate against the union president, instill fear in her, and create a climate of coercion” and create a “chilling effect” on all members of the union, the complaint said. The acting superintendent’s actions “are a result of her palpable ire that the union was successful in its effort to oust Romick’s personal friend and ally, former Superintendent Violet Nichols.”
The “investigation” concerns actions during off-duty union activities, the complaint said. An “employer has no right to investigate off duty union activities,” the filing said. Complaints about union activities and actions must be addressed internally through the channels of the union itself. A union is not obligated to entertain complaints regarding union activities by non-bargaining unit members.”
The filing makes three separate unfair labor practice charges and demands an immediate end to the bogus investigation; a finding that the district is acting unlawfully; and an admission that the acting superintendent has “interfered with, restrained, and coerced” the union’s leadership and members.
The filing can be read here.
