More Coffee, Please

The Keene Sentinel reported this past Wednesday that the Monadnock School Board launched a lawsuit against the MDEA.

After opting not to vote on a proposed health insurance carrier switch in May, the Monadnock Regional School District’s teachers’ union is now facing an unfair labor practice complaint by the district.

The Monadnock school district filed the complaint because the union failed to vote on the insurance proposal, according to paperwork submitted to New Hampshire’s Public Employee Relations Board by school district attorney Paul L. Apple.

… unions in all three districts opted not to vote on the matter, according to Unit 38 Business Manager Katherine E. Chambers. [emphasis added]

On June 5, the Monadnock Regional School Board voted to accept a motion, in response to the Monadnock unions’ position, to direct its attorney to file an “appropriate action,” according to minutes from the meeting.

In the complaint, dated July 12, Apple wrote, “The (Monadnock teachers’ union’s) refusal to consider, in good faith, the District’s proposal to change insurance carriers constitutes an unfair labor practice.”

The Monadnock union is the only one within Unit 38 now facing an unfair labor practice complaint, according to a spokesperson for the labor relations board. [emphasis added]

….

Members of the union, [Kahn] said, unofficially voted to only discuss the insurance issue at the bargaining table in May. The union agreed to this again in June, by an official vote, Kahn said. But at this point, the Cigna bid had already expired.

“(Kahn’s) decision not to submit the question to a vote of its membership was motivated by malice and bad faith,” the complaint states.

“Specifically, the (Monadnock Regional School District) Board of Education refused to implement a tentative agreement regarding regular retirement that would have specifically benefited (Kahn).”

Wow. I’m not sure where to begin. I might want to point back to an earlier post where I pointed out the complete and utter inability of the school board to move in a good direction. Maybe I should give the benefit of the doubt, however, and assume there’s something else going on besides an unwillingness to make the tough decisions which will fix the problems in the district.

I wonder what that other motive would be, however. This seems like something which could be cleared up by talking to the people who were at the initial meeting—and I was—rather than creating yet another example of non-cooperation and negative action.

I remember that meeting, and I remember the feelings that went into it. For one thing, I was furious that the first time I’d heard about this offer was not from an official channel but from the newspapers— the Cigna deal made it to the Keene Sentinel before it made it to the MDEA and that it would save the district a million dollars.

I hated the fact that now the teachers were in a lose-lose position. If we accepted the Cigna proposal we were going to be screwed in health insurance¹. If we rejected it, we were going to be crucified in the public and by the Monadnock Taxpayers Association when it came time to vote for contracts. I could already see their fliers— “Teachers were unwilling to help the district by saving 1 million dollars a year—why should we pay them more?”

To say I was unhappy walking into that meeting would be a vast understatement. If someone wanted to look around for “bad faith” then I don’t think I’d be looking at the MDEA. As far as I was concerned, our health carrier was something to be discussed by the negotiating team as part of a contract, not something to be debated in the papers. I was bothered by the mere fact that there was a sudden meeting to discuss something which should be part of the collective bargaining agreement.

At that initial meeting, I remember flatly voting to leave the question of switching to the bargaining table. It was—as I recall—unanimous. We didn’t feel like we had enough information, we didn’t like the way it was being handled, and we didn’t trust that this wasn’t an effort to save money at the expense of our health.

Sorry, but nobody in that room trusted this was a win-win. I remember thinking someone was trying to provide a long walk off a short pier.

After the presentation by the Cigna reps, I was even less impressed. They were unable to answer some basic questions raised by a staff member, and everything they showed us was either the same or worse than our current plan. There was not a single benefit, not a single good thing to come from switching.

And June, we said “no” again to taking a vote. We wanted to leave it to negotiations. This was very much the way the union as a whole wanted it.

And now we have an unfair labor practice. Perfect—they tried to force a switch by vote and that failed (it was illegal, and some on the board wanted to anyway—and now we have a suit which seems very much directed at the MDEA President, Cheryl Kahn. How personally directed?

“(Kahn’s) decision not to submit the question to a vote of its membership was motivated by malice and bad faith,” the complaint states.

Utter and complete crap. Speaking as a member of the MDEA, we were apprised, we were allowed to vote, and we did reject is because the benefits, although possibly “generally comparable” were in practice worse. I suppose paying more out of pocket is comparable, much the same that a Honda Accord is comparable to a Ford Escort—but having driven and done maintenance on both, I’d take the Honda every-time, and so would anyone else who had a choice.

Here’s the other thing—why is it only the Monadnock MDEA which is facing a lawsuit even though all three unions involved rejected the proposal in the same way? What is different about the Monadnock MDEA that makes it receive special treatment?

I’m wondering if the answer isn’t in the article itself. It’s too late to revive the Cigna proposal. It’s not too late to remove the MDEA president and hope someone with a little less steel is the replacement. Perhaps that’s the reason for the specific allegations in the suit?

In all this, I’m wondering where the discussion about OSHA standards for classrooms, air quality, security for the building, a proper nurse’s office, modular classrooms ten years past their expiration date (thanks to the skunks and diesel fumes, they often smell like it too), no teacher contract, and a class of 2009 which will not graduate from an accredited high school is?

1 If there’s one thing teachers can do it’s research. As soon as we heard rumors of the switch we started looking around. I don’t know a single teacher who found anything superior about Cigna and supported changing. I remember a teacher friend handing me a rating of health care providers at the meeting when we were listening to the Cigna reps which flatly contradicted what they were telling us and rated Cigna dead last in insurance. Who would switch in their right mind?

Gregarious

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