Youngstown Education Association files an unfair labor practice against the Youngstown City Schools Board of Education
(EDITOR’S NOTE: On Thursday, members of the Youngstown Education Association filed an unfair labor practice against the Youngstown City Schools Board of Education with the State of Ohio Employment Relations Board. The union said they were concerned over why some Choffin Career Center employees were removed from their positions. The union claims that the workers were removed since they are union members, while the board claimed it was over budget concerns. Here are statements from both sides).
Youngstown Education Association
On July 13, the Youngstown Education Association filed an Unfair Labor Practice against the Youngstown City Schools Board of Education with the State of Ohio Employment Relations Board.
The YEA filed an instant charge because the Board engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of the Ohio Revised Code when it unilaterally removed adult education Program Directors from the bargaining unit and eliminated all other bargaining unit positions for all adult education programs.
On or about May 9, 2023, the Board passed a resolution to remove the position of Program Director for the Dental Assisting Program from the bargaining unit effective beginning with the 2023-2024 school year.
Based upon the Board’s resolution, this position will continue to exist as a non-bargaining unit position.
The Board made no attempt to negotiate with the Association over this reassignment of bargaining unit work.
YEA Spokesperson Jim Courim, an eighth-grade English Language Arts teacher at Chaney Middle School, says, “We bargain at the table, not in the media.” Courim continues, “As I have stated many times before, we believe in transparency. We have been requesting bargaining dates since March of this year to negotiate a new agreement with the Board. The Board met with us once in May and has continuously canceled until now. We finally have July 26, 27, and 28 scheduled with a federal mediator, but it appears that negotiations are not a Board priority. The line of communication between the Association and the Board has clearly broken down.”
Courim also believes that there are answers that can be found from the Board itself, “If there are deficits since the fiscal year 2015 with Adult Education, we now have a Board member who was the director of programs at Choffin who should have resolved that problem then and should be able to speak to those problems today and going forward.”
Courim continues, “Since the Board states they’re committed to tightening the belt, the YEA would be more than willing to work with them to discuss the tightening of the belt. We would hope transparency exists across the board in the district when it comes to financial obligations such as athletic deficit obligations, the hiring process, and spending on salaries of all staff members, equipment, and services. We would have thought that the Board would have been transparent on the spending of the 77 million dollars of ESSER funds on students.”
Courim concludes, “The bottom line is you can’t unilaterally remove programs from our bargaining unit. This will be resolved in the courtroom, not the media.”
Youngstown City Schools Board of Education
Board of Education president Tiffany Patterson gave the following statement to the media.
“The Board of Education and administration want the public to know that the adult education program, while valuable, has operated at a fiscal deficit dating at least back to 2015,” Patterson wrote.
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