Sean C. Morgan
An arbitrator on May 28 ruled that School District 55 violated its contract and implied covenant of the duty of good faith and fair dealing with classified employees when it switched to the four-day school week.
The hearing was held Feb. 22.
The arbitrator ruled that health insurance premiums and all other contractually obligated benefits for the affected employees must be restored retroactively to June 4, 2012; and the district must restore the employees’ hours to previous levels.
According to the union, the district denied 13 employees their contractually obligated health benefit contribution by reducing hours to avoid paying health insurance premiums. The contract stipulates that employees are guaranteed full health insurance premiums if they work at least 6.5 hours per day.
“We are very pleased that a neutral, third-party arbitrator has upheld our position,” said Oregon School Employees Association President Tim Stoelb.
“This ruling will allow our members to recoup some of the losses that they and their families have sustained over the last year,” said OSEA Field Representative Jill Simmons.
“We are disappointed by the arbitrator’s decision, but we will accept it,” said Supt. Don Schrader. “Our next step is to meet with the union so we can implement the arbitrator’s decision.”
Schrader said nobody had “lost insurance,” and he was a little stunned by the decision, but the district will work with the union and move on.
The union argued before the arbitrator that employees were told their hours would be cut to avoid paying full health insurance premiums then saw their job duties cobbled together in a new position advertised for hiring.
The district argued that the superintendent sought to preserve staffing levels and see that employees neither lose benefits nor increased their benefit level from 2011-12. “No more and no less” was an established practice for 12-month employees working 10 hours per day four days a week during the summer.
When the district and union officials met in the summer, the union said it was no longer interested in keeping the insurance contribution amount the same, Schrader told The New Era. Instead, the union said that employees who had time added on Monday through Thursday should receive a higher district-paid insurance contribution. Based on that response, the district adjusted employee schedules so they would work the same number of daily hours in the 2012-13 school year as they did in 2011-12, maintaining the same insurance benefit.
The district reduced those hours on Aug. 14. The district argued there was no contract language forbidding the reduction of hours for employees in an effort to save on the cost of insurance.
The arbitrator’s opinion and award document explained that, as a result of the decision to change to a four-day week, the employees experienced a reduction in total number of hours worked per week but an increase in daily hours. The agreement between the district and employees was that performing 6.5 hours of work or more per day would result in the district’s contributing 100 percent of the employee’s insurance benefit. The employees were equaling or meeting the threshold.
The opinion noted that the district and union have had the opportunity in the past to bargain over whether the benefit is keyed to the number of days or total hours worked per week.
The district sought to avoid this result and after a series of meetings, discussions and interim bargaining over this issue, notified the employees in August that their total weekly work hours would again be further reduced and that their daily work hours would be reduced, disqualifying them for the 100-percent contribution to which they would otherwise be entitled, according to the arbitrator’s opinion.
Schrader said the union’s accusation that the district cobbled together new positions to reduce the hours was wrong.
Prior to the start of school, he said, there was a need for some additional instructional assistant time. The time would have been offered to the affected employees had their schedules allowed them to work it, but the additional time was needed during busy periods of the day when the affected employees were already working.
The exact cost of the decision won’t be known until the district meets with the union, Schrader said. “The exact cost will not be known until we find out how many of the affected employees will decide to take more expensive health insurance coverage.”