Labor Board Says School Officials Violated Union Contract

The state’s Board of Labor Relations has ordered Middletown’s Board of Education to reinstate a unionized central office position that the board has refused to fill since 2008.

In a decision issued Aug. 12 and received today by the city, the labor board said the city must reinstate the position of manager of financial operations (MFO) and then “bargain in good faith” with the union any work that it seeks to take away from that job.

The mayor, who is in a turf war with the school board over hiring practices, was quick to seize on the labor board's decision and declare victory. In a written statement released today Giuliano applauded the labor board’s decision, saying it affirms the city’s position that the board acted improperly when it created the business manager post, a job he said pays at least $30,000 more annually than the nonunion MFO job it replaced.

Giuliano said he would immediately seek to remove School Business Manager Nancy P. Haynes from her job.

He said city officials knew the creation of the SBO was wrong “and at the end of the day, our position proved to be the right one.”

The mayor and school leaders are also locked in a legal battle over another job the school board created and appointed recently.  The mayor is suing to overturn the board’s decision to freeze a position that Giuliano had sought to fill. Instead, the board created a new job in the central office and appointed the candidate of it choosing.

School Superintendent Michael Frechette could not be reached for comment Tuesday on the board’s decision. The board’s lawyer, Christine L. Chinni, also could not be reached for comment.

The board determined in its decision that the school board, acting as an agent of the city, sidestepped the union and city charter when it transferred the work from the unionized job MFO to a nonunion position it created in 2008 called the school business manager (SBM).

The school board had argued that it had the right to create the nonunion business manager position in lieu of the unionized MFO post, but the labor board soundly rejected that argument, saying that the duties of both jobs remained essentially the same; overseeing the school budget and supervising business office staff. Creating the SBM post, the board said, not only violated collective bargaining agreements, but also the city charter.

“We find this attempt to justify an obvious circumvention of the Charter’s limitations of the School Board’s authority to elevate form over substance and to be without merit,” the board said in its decision. “Job reclassification is ordinarily a mandatory subject of collective bargaining.

“Since the duties of the MFO position are presently and permanently being performed by the new SBM, it is clear that a position has effectively been eliminated from the bargaining unit,” the decision continues. “The union obviously has grounds to fear future encroachment of bargaining unit work given the means by which the transfer was effected …”

You can read the mayor’s statement and the labor board’s ruling, both of which are attached above as PDFs.