Teachers’ union responds to school board’s refusal to add workplace safety and comfort guarantees for ESPs
Press release from Alachua County Education Association
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – With just weeks to go to reach the legislated 60% membership for Education Support Professional Employees (ESPs), the School Board of Alachua County has made it clear how important the existence of our Union is. On March 4th, 2024, Alachua County Education Association (ACEA) Chief Negotiator for ESPs, Dr. Crystal Tessmann, proposed contract language that would provide ESPs with the same workplace safety and comfort guarantees that are already in the Instructional (Teachers’) Contract.
The ACEA’s proposal’s word count was 508 and included guarantees such as, “The Board will make reasonable efforts to maintain worksites and vehicles in clean condition and in good repair,” “The District shall investigate complaints of harmful indoor environmental quality and take measures to reasonably accommodate employees if necessary,” “Should the worksite supervisor or their designee determine that the condition creates immediate danger to the ESP(s), other employees or students, they will take immediate action to prevent harm to the ESP, other employees, and/or students,” and “Employees who are sensitive to vapors produced by maintenance, renovation, or repair projects and cannot be moved to another area free of the toxic or harmful vapor shall be granted paid illness-in-the-line-of-duty for the duration of the project producing the harmful vapors or given an alternative assignment during the time when injury may result,” among others.
The School Board of Alachua County responded with “CCL”—which means Current Contract Language. In this case, that means the School Board of Alachua County agreed to add NONE of the safety measures proposed by ACEA. When asked “Why?”, their response was, “Just felt like this didn’t need to be added, that we will definitely work to try to keep the conditions similar to what is in the instructional, however it’s very restrictive for ESP’s. It’s very difficult to ensure that that’s met.”
ACEA strongly feels that this reason is inadequate. The School Board of Alachua County did not even pass a revised version of the language back that could have addressed any concerns they had with ACEA’s proposed language.
ACEA calls on the School Board of Alachua County to do better. ALL employees and students deserve to be guaranteed that their safety is the highest priority. Placing that guarantee in one employee group’s contract and not the other is abhorrent.
ACEA further calls on School Board ESPs and teachers to join ACEA now. We need you to join completely by April 12th, 2024–but really as soon as possible. The stronger we are, the louder our voice to make improvements. Additionally, if we do not hit our 60% threshold in our ESP unit, we are in danger of losing our union completely. That means the contract rights we do have already would dissolve—and you can see how hard it is to create new ones.
Service Unit Director, Dr. Crystal Tessmann added, “The School Board of Alachua County’s unwillingness to align ESP safety guarantees with those of teachers in contract language is arbitrary and wrong. Please do better for all employees.”
“With just weeks to go to reach the legislated 60% membership for Education Support Professional Employees (ESPs)…
…Additionally, if we do not hit our 60% threshold in our ESP unit, we are in danger of losing our union completely.”
Trying to widen their base in an attempt to meet basic union enrollment minimums. What a racket
If you didn’t read my comment on the front:
This union, and most teachers unions, have done more harm to children and their education they they ever helped or improved. The Democrat Covid response was a perfect example. They exist solely for the benefit of the teachers, not the students, not the curriculum, not the parents, not the taxpayers. Why do you think parents want more charter schools, instead of the public education they are ruining?
Parents are personally responsible for feeding and educating their kids. It takes a village to raise a child is a commi slogan. Don’t breed em if you can’t educate and feed em. The public school system should focus on reading, writing, & arithmetic and stay out of the kid’s pants with all that lgbqxyz grooming. The ACSB & the teachers’unions committed child abuse by forcing masks and shutting down the schools for the big lie Covid….there’s lots of lunatics wearing the face diaper like sicko Sako and that other Fatso twin with the glasses on the ACSB…wha? They have fricken long Covid and gonna wear that face diaper the rest of their lives? That’s just mental illness! Face it!
correcto mundo, Mr. Pink.
Why not invite illegal aliens to sign up as ESPs, too? Just temporarily so the union gets the census count. 💩🤡👹🍦🍦🍦D
This is a result of DeSantis and the GOP state legislature selectively toughening laws on unions who opposed him – teachers – but not on those who supported him – police. This of course is partisan BS of the worst sort, typical of our thug governor and lap dog legislators – and will hopefully be struct down by the courts.
“In St. Johns County, on the Atlantic shore of Northeast Florida, more than 55% of public school teachers paid their union dues this last year. Despite that, nearly 3,500 teachers are facing the threat of having their union representation revoked. At the same time, in Southwest Florida, only 16% of law enforcement officers of the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office paid union dues last year. Their union is under absolutely no threat of being decertified.
A year after Governor DeSantis signed into law a sweeping anti-union bill requiring most public sector unions to boost the rate of members paying dues or be disbanded, the full effects of the new union rules are coming into clear view — double standards and all.
Law enforcement, firefighter and correctional officer unions are exempt from the new law, no matter how few members pay union dues.
For other public sector unions, what is emerging is an outright crisis.
A labor economist warned the law could prove to be more effective in destroying labor power in Florida than the landmark Act 10 proved to be in Wisconsin, a law broadly considered as one of the strongest anti-union laws ever passed by a state government.
“The work conditions of hundreds of thousands of people are going to be up in the air. That’s real lives. That’s not politics … People’s lives are going to be upended.”
Rich Templin, director of politics and public policy for the AFL-CIO Florida.
After reviewing hundreds of pages of state union recertification filings, WLRN can reveal that already several tens of thousands of workers have quietly lost their collective bargaining rights, a right that is explicitly protected by the Florida Constitution….”
https://www.wlrn.org/wlrn-investigations/2024-02-15/florida-labor-union-membership-teachers-public-sb-256
“This of course is partisan BS of the worst sort” = their side did it
“That’s just how things work. Don’t like it? Win an election” = our side did it
So “anonymous” favors legislation which is based on zero principles but targets groups based on purely partisan interests, as if that is the proper role of the government, and I see 8 gave me a thumbs down on my factually accurate post above. What a bunch of weak, immoral, and stupid hacks on this comment board.
That is one possibility.
More likely, though, is that the premise of the governor selectively punishing groups because he is a “thug” leading “lapdog legislators” is short on merit, and inhibits reasoned discussion of the proposal and its broader effects should it pass (or fail).
It’s already passed. Try to keep up.
“After reviewing hundreds of pages of state union recertification filings, WLRN can reveal that already several tens of thousands of workers have quietly lost their collective bargaining rights, a right that is explicitly protected by the Florida Constitution….”
Seems as if they have a great case for overturning the new legislation. They should work on that rather than trying to get more members, it’s likely the new legislation would be suspended until the appeal had been heard.
It’s in the courts This may, and in the meantime the law is doing the designed damage.
Public employees should not have unions, IMO. They are supposed to be servants of The People, not dictators or better paid with better benefits than the people they are supposed to serve. If you don’t like your job, do something else.
Then, if you are a man of principle – most here are not – you must also oppose the public unions which DeSantis and the Republicans favored by exempting them from this new law meant to cripple them.
Teachers have better pay and benefits? Government is the largest US employer–you’re saying those people do not deserve the same rights and protections as those who work at Amazon or GM? I’m not sure you know what you’re talking about…
Oh Jizz-Breath here you go again. Unions represent the lazy, typically unions are filled with folks who couldn’t keep their jobs unless they were in a union protecting them. I say this because they couldn’t keep a job from a non-union employer because they can’t perform successfully. If the employee does a good job and is successful, in their position, the employer will want to keep them employed and pay them well. Unions were once a good thing, but they have become a way for the unproductive to stay employed by having the union bully the employer. Basically, union are an extension of our failing government.
Putting aside your perverse desires, which I assure you none of us really want to hear about, you must also oppose the public employee unions DeSantis and the state GOP favored by exempting them from this new law.
Just curious, are your employees unionized?
No Steve and not the issue. I can tell you that I don’t favor or punish any of them for their political opinions or positions.
JM, So you will be fine with things if the legislature modifies the law to include public safety employees? (That is my personal position.) I’d also be fine if they changed the law to be 50% + one person paying dues to keep a union.
Point of interest:
The WLRN (NPR affiliate) station’s article you linked had a further link to a Google Sheets page with statistics about the unions and their ability to get dues paying support from members. I did some quick calculations: Of 168.5k employees represented by 159 unions tracked by WLRN, 41 unions representing 29k employees meet the 60% dues payer threshold. Then I filtered for unions with less than 50% paying dues. This subset has 118 unions representing 99.8k employees and 18.0k (18%) employees are paying dues. It seems a stretch for a union to claim it represents its workers when less than 20% care enough about the union to pay dues. None of the unions based in Alachua county meet the 60% (or even a 50%) threshold.
Yes Steve, I would not be in such hot opposition to this outrageous law if applied equally to all unions. I could still have an opinion about other facets of it, but at least it would be fairly applied.
Union’s are a destructive, misleading mechanism, they allow shifty minded people to get away with being excused from responsibility just because they have gas,(the intestinal kind of gas).
Then oppose them all, not just the ones who’s don’t support the GOP.
The Democrats wouldn’t do it any differently. Get real
Funny, but the dems haven’t done this, though if they had it would be no less outrageous.
Public unions should be illegal, especially when you watch said unions constantly taking money they make from their members and hand much of it back to one specific political party over and over. I too am a state employee, and guess what, you don’t take a state job because you are going to become wealthy. When you sign on the dotted line you know that raises are not annual,there is no profit sharing, and at anytime your job could be on the chopping block. You take it because you know that the benefits are good and (while not all) many of us are trying to support our fellow citizens using the knowledge we have obtained, whether it be at a trade school, a college/university, or the school of hard knocks.
Then oppose them all, not just the ones who’s don’t support the GOP.
“Employees who are sensitive to vapors produced by maintenance, renovation, or repair projects and cannot be moved to another area free of the toxic or harmful vapor shall be granted paid illness-in-the-line-of-duty for the duration of the project producing the harmful vapors or given an alternative assignment during the time when injury may result,” among others. Doesn’t take a PhD to figure out where that’ll lead.
Some ESPs have jobs that place them in an environment very different from Instructional personnel. Those jobs they were hired to perform, custodial duties come to mind, require the use of cleaning agents and equipment that some may claim to be “sensitive” to. While custodial personnel are an important part of the school system, they applied and were hired to perform a job that they knew, or should have known, involves the use of chemicals and equipment to keep the school as clean and safe as possible for all.
It’s their job, they don’t need contractual wording to avoid performing it.