Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
CCSD conflict with teachers union
A key concept in the Clark County School District’s renewed request for a judge to put a stop to alleged rolling sickouts by teachers is that the Clark County Education Association is responsible for the activity even if the union did not expressly coordinate it.
A Clark County District Court judge will consider this argument at an emergency hearing today.
The short version of CCSD’s argument, which it filed late Monday: If the 165 teachers who called in sick at five schools between Sept. 1 and Sept. 8 did so as a concerted strike action but on their own accord, staging non-union-affiliated “wildcat” strikes, they were nonetheless influenced by CCEA’s messaging in prior months.
On July 31, CCSD sued CCEA Executive Director John Vellardita, its president and vice president, and the union as an organization, citing public comments made by union members and leadership the district interpreted as credible threats to strike. Union leaders and members had said “work actions,” as Vellardita has phrased them, were possible if the union did not have a new contract by Aug. 26.
State law defines “strike” broadly to include work stoppages, slowdowns, sickouts and interference with operations. Employers may request that courts prevent threatened strikes, which was CCSD’s original but failed tactic.
In an Aug. 22 hearing, Judge Jessica Peterson said she found Vellardita’s comments “concerning” but stopped short of issuing the injunction CCSD had sought, saying she didn’t have enough information to do so.
In issuing her ruling, she did leave the door open to entertain another motion from CCSD “if something were to happen.”
CCSD said that the time has come.
“Make no mistake, the concerted sickouts are illegal under any interpretation of (the law), but Defendants, and a portion of their dues-paying Membership, simply do not care,” the district argued.
CCEA has not responded to the Sun’s repeated requests for comment on behalf of its members regarding the spikes in teacher absences. However, CCEA had denied coordinating the absences when asked by other local media.
Here is how CCSD expanded on its central theme in its 80-page motion and how CCEA responded:
“It is simply not believable that Defendants would threaten targeted work actions for months and have no involvement when those work actions come to pass through their own members’ conduct. Indeed, Defendants cannot ‘lead a horse to water’ and feign surprise when it drinks,” the Monday filing read.
“Even if Defendants did not expressly coordinate these sickouts themselves, the actions of their striking bargaining unit members across Clark County were an imminently foreseeable consequence of Defendants’ campaign,” the motion added.
In a response filed late Tuesday, union lawyers said there was simply no evidence linking CCEA to the alleged sickouts.
“The District comes to this Court, once again, for an extraordinary injunction, this time claiming that a teachers’ strike is currently in progress,” the union’s response read. “Yet the District has no evidence whatsoever that any of the Defendants in this matter… have had anything whatsoever to do with any teachers in the district calling out sick or otherwise absent.”
Efficiency: CCSD argued that the law allows the court to enjoin labor organizations whose bargaining units – the individuals they represent, whether or not they are dues-paying members – strike.
With that means taking the blame even if the union did not order the strike, the district said.
“If the Court were required to issue an individual injunction against each public employee who engaged in an illegal strike, it would allow the non-enjoined employees to continue to strike until the employer could bring a separate legal action against each employee who is absent from work. This makes no practical sense given the purpose of the statute,” the filing said.
CCEA’s filing reiterated that there was no connection, and “nothing in (the law) places liability on CCEA or its personnel for the unsanctioned conduct of individuals — nothing.”
“Without evidence of coordination by CCEA, which does not exist, there is no basis for an extraordinary intervention by the Court demanded by the District,” the union added. “It also points up the impossibility of enforcing such an injunction, or for CCEA to obey it, where it is enjoined from conduct it cannot control and did not coordinate in the first instance.”
A declaration from a district human resources official said that 165 teachers called out — with almost all saying they were sick — at five schools between Sept. 1-8. Gibson, Sewell and Givens elementary schools canceled school outright on single days. Southeast Career and Technical Academy high school and Monaco Middle did not cancel school but did combine several classes in common areas like gyms for supervision. (The motion was filed on Monday; on Tuesday, four additional schools closed because of teacher absences.)
The teacher absence rates ranged from 42% at SECTA, on Sept. 1, to 87% at Gibson on Sept. 5. The five schools have a combined 272 teachers.
“It defies logic and common sense to believe that licensed teachers at three different schools happened to fall ill the same day as their colleagues, such that the school was forced to close,” the district argued.
The union pointed out that the absences wrapped around the Labor day holiday and colds, flu and COVID-19 are circulating.
“It is not enough just to claim that a high number of call-outs occurred at a particular school, or that the District and the school in question could not manage the situation on a particular day, or to show that the District believes its operations have been ‘interrupted’ to this or that degree,” it said.
The hearing begins at 11 a.m. in Department 19 of Clark County District Court.
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