Increased tensions between leaders of Akron Public Schools and the teachers union have resulted in each group claiming the other has obstructed their ability to reasonably settle disputes.
The schools administration filed an unfair labor practice charge claiming as much in April. The Akron Education Association followed with its own filing this month. Both charges were filed with the State Employment Relations Board, which has already conducted mediation for the first complaint — both sides said it was a good first step.
The district’s filing accused the union of undermining the process the groups use to manage complaints about working conditions. The district accused the AEA of not providing enough information about the problems the union wants addressed.
The district’s complaint went to mediation last month, but it is still not resolved. Earlier this month, when the AEA filed its own complaint, it accused the Akron Board of Education, Superintendent Michael Robinson and the administration of “insolent and deceitful actions” that kept them from resolving grievances.
“In general, the concern is they’re just failing to cooperate,” said Don Malarcik, an attorney representing the AEA. “They’re doing everything they can to delay and obstruct.”
The district’s complaint essentially accuses the AEA of the same thing, saying union leaders are filing grievances that only list the section of the contract that’s allegedly being violated, without explaining the issue. Yamini Adkins, the executive director for human capital for Akron Public Schools, said the union is providing a “laundry list of violations,” without any context or examples of the issue to back them up.
“It should not be a surprise tactic,” Adkins said of the grievance process. “They absolutely failed to describe any incident, any subject, any event.”
In Akron, a history of tension
The filings come during a period when the administration and the union are already at odds on a number of issues. In May, Robinson gave a speech to members of Akron’s Second Baptist Church ahead of a school board vote that eliminated more than 250 jobs, including those of more than 50 teachers. He told the congregation he expected to be crucified at the next day’s school board meeting, where the cuts were to be voted on.
He noted that while there are seven unions, he worked well with “all six of them.” There was a clear implication that it was the AEA, which represents more than 2,000 teachers and other employees, that Robinson had a tense relationship with.
Robinson told the congregation ahead of the vote that people would “hear the ugly on tomorrow, because that’s what the devil does. The devil is coming to seek whom he can devour and destroy.”
The next day, Janell Brown, a vice president with the AEA, told a crowd of more than 100 teachers gathered for a rally that Robinson “stated the union is the devil and he is being crucified.”
At the same rally, AEA President Pat Shipe said Robinson’s speech was part of an “aggressive pattern of behavior” and the superintendent’s habit of “playing loose with the truth.”
It wasn’t the first issue between the two groups that rumbled into the public eye. Shipe, at the rally, enumerated other complaints: the creation of a districtwide social media policy for teachers and staff, delayed responses to records requests and accusations Robinson edited a video of a school board meeting.
More recently, the AEA has accused the district of union busting and sent a cease-and-desist letter in relation to the job cuts.
The district declined to comment on the AEA’s most recent unfair labor practice charge. Mark Williamson, a spokesperson, said via email the district was “going to withhold any reaction at this time.” Mike Defibaugh, the director of labor relations for Akron Public Schools, said previously he was still going through the complaint and the district was “trying to wrap our arms around it.”
‘Block and delay’
The AEA filed its complaint because Akron school officials were unwilling to meet and discuss issues collaboratively, Malarcik said.
He said in the past, while contract language required a tight timeline for submitting and responding to grievances, previous administrations had been more flexible in adhering to those requirements. Now, he said, if a grievance hasn’t been properly filed within the 15-day timeline, the district is saying the AEA has waived its right to raise the issue further.
At the same time, Malarcik said, the district doesn’t allow principals to try to first resolve issues, though that’s supposed to be the initial step in a dispute.
“I don’t want to litigate, I don’t want to file [unfair labor practice complaints],” he said. “But they would rather use procedures to block and delay.”
He also accused the administration of treating grievances by the AEA differently than those from other unions and said the district has put up roadblocks to choosing an arbitrator to mediate some of the ongoing disputes.
The AEA’s complaint is independent of the district’s, Malarcik said, but “both cover the same topic” — how grievances are processed.
School district: AEA brought system to ‘standstill’
It’s unusual for employers to file unfair labor practice cases, which usually come from unions, not leadership. Last year, there were 155 cases filed to the State Employment Relations Board; just 14 of them were filed by employers against unions, according to the board’s data.
APS didn’t take the decision to file lightly, Defibaugh said. He called it regrettable, but said he had to move forward after the AEA “brought the complete system to a standstill” through its filing method.
“I don’t take delight in filing,” Defibaugh said. “I did it to protect employees’ rights.”
The AEA has been out of compliance with its contract, he said, making it impossible to manage the process of working through disagreements between labor and management. If there isn’t a workable manner of resolving disputes, employees’ complaints linger without any resolution, and others may deal with issues that could have already been fixed, if not for the delays.
Both Defibaugh and Adkins said they believe the June 17 mediation regarding the district’s complaint went well, though the issue has not been resolved.
“Any time you can get together and have meaningful discussions with the union, it’s a good meeting,” Defibaugh said.
Resolving disputes
Malarcik noted that in the union’s most recent grievance, filed July 3, he made an effort to explain the issue that led to the complaint, instead of just listing contract areas that were concerns.
“My intent in adding that language is to get past these procedural hurdles the administration keeps bringing up,” he said.
Defibaugh said the most recent union grievance now has “at least some factual basis,” though he said it was still “fundamentally lacking” in details.
Adkins, in an email to the AEA earlier this year, said the district would be happy to meet to discuss grievances, “If and when AEA resumes filing proper grievances setting forth the underlying facts so that administration is able to investigate the matter grieved and provide a response …”
The idea that the district doesn’t know what the grievances relate to is “absurd” and “really disingenuous,” Malarcik said. Before any grievance was filed, he said, the AEA exchanged emails with Defibaugh and Adkins, explaining their concerns and bringing them up to speed on the issues.
“They are involved in it and they’re the people we’re talking to,” he said.
For their part, Adkins and Defibaugh said they want to have meaningful conversations with employees and union representatives to resolve the problems that will come up in the future. They want the AEA’s grievance filings to follow the negotiated contract, they said, so both parties can do the work they need to to handle complaints. Defibaugh said his job is to eliminate problems — preferably, resolving disputes before the grievance process even begins.
“Personally, I don’t think this needs to be so hard,” Adkins said. “We want to get these things handled in an appropriate, reasonable manner.”
