Modesto City Schools rebuked for acts in teachers union battle

A state board has ruled Modesto City Schools violated the rights of teachers during the local union’s 2014 fight with its state affiliate.

A June 23 order, emailed to employees by MCS Deputy Superintendent Craig Rydquist on Friday, says the district lost its case before the Public Employment Relations Board and will reimburse the California Teachers Association for fees it charged to use meeting rooms in 2014.

The district also lost the larger issue litigated before PERB, its blocking of pro-CTA teacher communications during Modesto Teachers Association’s bid to disassociate from the statewide union. The decision sets precedent, but as the state and local unions have reconciled, it does not change existing practice.

“It has been found that Modesto City Schools (District) violated the Educational Employment Relations Act, Government Code section 3450 et seq. by denying the California Teachers Association access to communicate with employees through the district’s email system, teacher mailboxes and district facilities, providing unlawful assistance to the Modesto Teachers Association, and interfering with the rights of Lindsay Bird and Janeen Zambo,” the notice says.

Bird and Zambo were among the teachers who were not allowed to put pro-CTA information into teachers’ in-school mailboxes or send pro-CTA emails to or from teachers’ district emails during the intraunion dispute, while local union advocates were able to use both.

At the time, the district said CTA was not entitled to communicate with its local members through regular school channels because MTA was the teachers’ “exclusive representative,” a legal term generally applied to negotiating contracts. All membership dues to MTA include a portion sent on to CTA, making Modesto teachers members of both.

The battle between the unions centered on a long-standing practice by MTA and Modesto City Schools that allowed the union executive director to accrue retirement credit as if still teaching, though union staff jobs do not meet California State Teachers’ Retirement System requirements for “creditable service.”

For 22 years, MTA was led by a succession of former teachers who served as union president and then were hired as MTA executive director while the union paid the school district to continue as employer of record.

A CalSTRS investigation into the arrangement began in 2013 and CTA intervened to negotiate a settlement, insisting the local chapter end the practice. Instead, the MTA board decided to pursue a split from the state union, framing the exit as a matter of local control.

Over the next tumultuous months, the Modesto union had its office raided, its bank accounts temporarily locked, and stood its ground through back-and-forth court battles. Teachers said they ate in their rooms to avoid tension in the school staff lounge.

The school district supported MTA through its leave campaign, blocking teachers in the remaining camp from giving out fliers or sending updates or information to co-workers through school channels, leading to the PERB case decision in June. In May 2014, Modesto teachers voted to stick with CTA, 58 percent to 40 percent.

The MTA executive director at the time, Megan Gowans, resigned from her union job and returned to teaching high school history for 2014-15. She received a one-year emergency waiver to teach English learners, a district requirement added since she had last taught a decade earlier. Gowans retired in June 2015 and earned a half-year retirement income of $36,863 for 2015 from CalSTRS.

This story was originally published August 19, 2016 at 7:56 PM with the headline "Modesto City Schools rebuked for acts in teachers union battle."