The Saucon Valley Education Association is urging the
state to throw out the school board's unfair labor practices complaint and
cancel a scheduled hearing.
If the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board doesn't cancel
the Nov. 24 hearing, the association will subpoena the school board and its
attorney, according to a letter from union attorney Andrew Muir.
The Saucon Valley School Board filed an unfair labor
practices complaint against the teachers in June alleging they were bargaining
in bad faith by asking for millions more than at the start of contract talks.
On Wednesday, Muir filed a response to the district's
unfair labor claim urging the labor board to rescind the complaint and cancel
the hearing.
"Both merely serve to prolong negotiations by
delaying the inevitable return to negotiations," Muir wrote in a letter
with the filing.
Board attorney Jeffrey Sultanik said he is puzzled why
the union is responding so long after the board filed the order.
"We're confident the labor board will have to find
the union's bargaining in bad faith because the union's current position is
much higher than where the union started out in the collective bargaining
process," Sultanik said.
Muir acknowledged it is unlikely for the labor board to
rescind any complaint as its practice is to issue one if there's any question
the law may have been violated.
But the association is asking them to do so: "in the
interest of justice and an (sic) in the interest of preventing additional waste
of tax payer money that must be spent to bank roll the school board's failed
strategy to 'win at all costs' by initiating frivolous litigation and
continuing its expensive negative public relations campaign," Muir wrote.
If the hearing isn't cancelled the association will be
requesting subpoenas for all school board members, former Superintendent Sandra
Fellin and Sultanik, Muir said.
"Each will be required to produce documents and to
answer question about their activities and knowledge of the events that took
place behind the scenes in fact finding and their conduct in
negotiations," Muir wrote.
Sultanik is puzzled as to why Muir is focusing on
fact-finding when the hearing is about the union's regressive negotiating
tactics.
"It is just completely irrelevant," Sultanik
said. "I don't understand what they are trying to prove."
Sultanik said he has already issued subpoenas to prepare
for the upcoming hearing.
The school board filed the complaint because it claims
the union is asking for millions of dollars more than earlier in negotiations.
The association denies this in its filing, arguing it is
seeking $2.7 million less in payroll that it did in February of 2012 when it
submitted its first proposal.
Sultanik called that argument a smoke screen. Payroll is
lower because of retirements, he said.
"We don't negotiate payroll. We negotiate
salaries," Sultanik said. "In terms of salary demands, they are
millions of dollars higher than they were before."
The two sides have been negotiating since January 2012.
The contract expired in June of that year.
If the school district is victorious in its unfair labor
practice complaint, the teachers union will have to agree to a contract that
fits within the school district's proposed contract budget, Sultanik has said.
A negotiation session is scheduled for Oct. 8. The board
plans to bring forward a six-year contract proposal, which largely mirrors an
independent fact-finder's recommendations for the first four years. The
contract will try to increase starting teacher salaries.
Teacher went on strike in 2005, 2008 and 2009.
Source: Lehigh
Valley Live
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