MONTPELIER – When members of the Blue Mountain School Board ignored their own bargaining team and rejected a three-year teachers’ contract, they claimed the cost of raises were at the heart of the issue. The real reason, according to an unfair labor practices charge filed Monday with the Vermont Labor Relations Board, was they were angry at a report of widespread discontent with the leadership of the district’s superintendent.
“We (the Blue Mountain Education Association) understand that Superintendent Heather Lawler’s feelings may have been hurt after we gathered feedback from Blue Mountain educators that they had little confidence in her ability to effectively lead the district,” said Jessica Roy, a third- and fourth-grade teacher at the school who serves as the president of the BMEA. “But that’s no reason to reject a contract agreement we reached with the school board’s bargaining team months ago.”
After bargaining teams for the teachers and the board came to a tentative agreement on a new deal, the union shared the results of a listening tour that showed widespread dissatisfaction with Lawler’s leadership that has caused a significant drop in morale among faculty and staff.
Lawler then, according to the union’s filing, publicly began expressing concern about the district’s ability to afford the raises the board’s team had agreed to. Lawler asserted she was “blindsided” by the results of the union’s listening tour. “Lawler did not publicly raise any concerns regarding the ability to fund the contract…until after the results of the listening tour were shared” with the board, the filing states.
The filing also says the board negotiated in bad faith when members of its own bargaining team ultimately voted to reject the contract, a clear violation of Vermont labor law. In addition, the filing says the board violated bargaining ground rules, and, by rejecting the pact on two separate occasions, engaged in regressive bargaining.
The board’s “actions are inherently destructive” in its “anti-union motivation,” the filing asserts. “Its actions have created delays and a disadvantage to the union by placing it in a position to negotiate against an agreement that was previously reached.”
Roy, the union president, said that the board’s blaming its actions on the pact’s effect on property tax hikes and the state’s nascent school consolidation law was, in a word, “hogwash.”
“What’s not hogwash is that the board has made a mess that will cost thousands of dollars on attorneys, mediators, and others,” Roy said. “What’s not hogwash is that without a contract, the provisions preventing strikes or lockouts are no longer in effect. What’s not hogwash is that the board has bargained in bad faith and has violated numerous Vermont labor laws. And what’s not hogwash is my colleagues and I starting a school year feeling defeated and disrespected.”
The unfair labor practices charge was filed with the assistance of Vermont-NEA’s legal team. The filing asks the Vermont Labor Relations Board to order the school board to reverse its decision and ratify the tentative pact to which its bargaining team agreed.
Editors: You can read the ULP charge filing here.
