Akron teachers' union accuses school district of 'union-busting'

The Akron Education Association sent a cease and desist letter to Akron Public Schools over accusations of replacing union jobs with non-union ones.

The alleged "union-busting" is over the 55 positions that AEA teachers have filled at the district's central office. Those teachers were all reassigned to classroom teaching jobs ahead of next school year. But the union is alleging the district is hiring new people outside of union coverage to do the work those teachers were doing at the central office.

The letter, dated June 26, calls for the district to stop the hiring under the newly created job postings and to bring the teachers who were already doing those jobs back to central office.

AEA attorney Don Malarcik said if the district does not comply with the cease and desist, the union will escalate the matter into a union grievance and an unfair labor practice filing.

"That’s clear union-busting," Malarcik said. "You can't take a union position, eliminate it, and then create essentially the same position and call it something else."

He said the district has yet to respond.

In a statement Monday, the Akron schools administration said the allegations are "inaccurate and have no basis in fact."

"It is disappointing that AEA continues to behave in a combative manner and hurl false accusations and seek public attention rather than working collaboratively with the APS administration," the statement said. It also said the union did not bring up accusations of union-busting when the administration notified AEA of the job changes months ago.

But Malarcik said there was no way to know at the time how the district planned to backfill the jobs.

"The postings had not come out yet, the jobs had not been filled yet," he said. "Now they are."

In May, the school board voted to approve a restructuring plan that included moving those 55 teachers at the central office back into the classroom, which caused a younger, less experienced set of about the same number of teachers to receive layoff notices.

The cease and desist letter from the union does not address the layoffs, but rather the backfilling of the jobs at the central office with new positions that reportedly have the same or similar job descriptions under new titles and coding.

Malarcik said some of the the teachers who are being moved from central office to the classroom have received calls from the district headquarters encouraging them to apply for the new jobs.

He said he doesn't know how many of the positions could be backfilled but provided two examples identified by the union.

One is for a "special education services specialist," the other a "college and career academies specialist." Both were posted in the last two weeks, according to screenshots from the union.

Malarcik noted the requirements for the jobs include a master's degree and five years of experience teaching, but the listings no longer include a requirement of being a licensed teacher.

"They’re going to be doing the same job, working with the same people, same curriculum," he said. "Only thing that’s changed is the job code."

Malarcik said the jobs were created about 10 years ago as the district sought to better support teachers in the classroom and to even out curriculum and instruction across the district. The administration pulled experienced teachers out of their classrooms to work with teachers not in one building, but across several buildings.

They were called "instructional specialists," he said, and specialized in certain subjects, like math or language arts, or other areas of expertise, like technology. Their job descriptions, when posted, specifically designated the positions as part of the Akron Education Association.

"There was this idea of let’s find some way to kind of add structure to the curriculum, let's pull some teachers who are really good at this and have a lot of experience and get the instruction and can help the other teachers, and let's have them teach the teachers," Malarcik said. "That made perfect sense."

Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron teachers' union accuses school district of 'union-busting'