excerpts from:
November 5, 2010 Volume 111 Number 21
Teacher Patricia Raclot — who was terminated earlier this year after she supported a unionizing campaign — last month turned down an offer of two years salary if she would drop her legal case and give up her right to get her job back.
In the four-day trial that followed, a federal administrative law judge heard evidence that the school terminated Raclot for her pro-union activity, and that school leaders committed numerous other violations of U.S. labor law. On Oct. 26, a federal district court judge ordered the school to stop violating labor law.
The case stems from a campaign by teachers and support staff to join American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Workers at the private school wanted greater job security, and discipline and grievance procedures to protect them against pervasive maltreatment, unequal treatment, and unfair discipline.
On March 8, after a majority of the school’s employees signed union authorization cards, they asked the school to recognize the union. The very next day — according to evidence presented at the trial — school head Elimane Mbengue told an attorney to stop working on the renewal of Raclot’s work visa. Raclot is a French citizen. She has worked at the school for six years.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — the federal agency that’s supposed to protect workers’ right to unionize — investigated Raclot’s termination and found sufficient evidence to pursue charges against the school.
Anti-union members of the school’s board conducted mandatory anti-union meetings, made repeated threats of individual discipline and collective consequences, promised to remedy grievances within six months if workers would vote “no” on the union, and warned that unionizing would scare away parents and cause school closure within a year. They also maintained an illegal “no-complaining” rule, and enforced it selectively against union supporters.
The NLRB wanted to prevent continued lawbreaking while the case is pending, and asked U.S. District Court for a temporary court order, known as a “10(j) injunction.” Judge Michael Mosman granted the injunction for the most part, ordering the school to stop threatening and discriminating against pro-union employees, stop promising to remedy grievances in exchange for non-unionization, and get rid of the “no complaining” rule. The school must also post the court order, and hold a meeting of all employees within 10 days where the order would be read aloud.
If school administrators fail to comply with the court order, they could be held in contempt of court, with jail time and fines as a result.
Wow! What a hero Patricia is for continuing to fight instead of taking 2 years salary as a pay-off. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the article was from 2010, so dug around trying to find out what the eventual outcome was. Eventually Patricia was reinstated, but the school had spent so much money on anti-union expenses, which caused so much chaos among teachers, students, and parents of students that enrollment dropped to the point where the school was forced to declare bankruptcy.
Unbelievable. They feared a collective bargaining agreement with their workers so much that the company shoots itself in the own foot and went out of business.
Source: http://nwlaborpress.org/2011/05/af/
Interesting! Thanks for sharing ABK.
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