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"All the Status of School Supplies"

Idaho ESP can be fired anytime for no reason. That's why they're aiming for bargaining rights.

If you're an education support professional who works under a collective bargaining law, the story of Idaho NEA member Chris Greenfield?and ESP in several other "non-bargaining" states?may strike you as bad fiction.

But if you work in a state where ESPs have all the status of school supplies, Greenfield's long ordeal may strike you very close to home.

Greenfield, an Idaho Education Association activist since 1989, quit the Post Falls school district in June. In her resignation letter, she cited "a hostile work environment, numerous job transfers to which I have been subjected," and the resulting "effect on my health."

Post Falls administrators had pushed Greenfield, a single mother of three with 14 years of service, to the edge. Just before she quit, Greenfield was living with anger, "terrible" rashes, anxiety, sleeplessness, and depression.

Small wonder. Over 13 years, this veteran bus driver had endured everything her bosses could dish out?including assignment to broken-down buses, surveillance on the job and after work, and reassignment from driving to a series of make-work jobs without position descriptions or set pay rates.

Greenfield's only sin: She acted like a typical NEA Association rep.

This activist recruited new members, attended state Association meetings, and filed grievances over abuses such as seniority violations and improper pay for new drivers.

"Chris's case is a microcosm of why ESP need a collective bargaining law," says IEA attorney John Rumel, who's handling a lawsuit on Greenfield's behalf?aimed at returning her to her drivers' job and winning both compensatory damages and injunctive relief from discrimination and retaliation.

"A lot of issues raised by Greenfield on the job, like not assigning bus routes on the basis of seniority or other objective criteria, could be bargained," Rumel emphasizes.

"There's also the issue of a lack of respect and real due process rights for ESP," he adds. "Our state's ESP grievance mechanism is not powerful. Even if you get a good decision from an arbitration hearing panel, judicial review is deferential toward the school board."

Opponents of ESP bargaining argue that it could produce an avalanche of litigation. Yet Idaho teachers, who have enjoyed bargaining rights since 1971, have showed that these rights potentially open the way for less litigation.

Teachers who have more rights?and who have those rights enforced?"should be able to ferret out and resolve disputes at lower levels," says Rumel, "whereas in Chris Greenfield's case, we have to go to court to vindicate an ESP."

"Idaho classified school employees deserve more protection, and the only way to achieve it is through a law that would compel districts to negotiate with us," says Sandra Nalley, registrar at Century High School in Pocatello. "Most districts won't do this by themselves. Superintendents pressure each other not to engage in bargaining with ESP."

That's why delegates to this year's IEA Delegate Assembly voted to push for an ESP collective bargaining law.

Following this lead, Democratic State Representative Bert Marley, a high school teacher and IEA member from Arimo, agreed to sponsor two bills in the 2001 legislative session, one to establish ESP bargaining, and the other?a back-up?to create more limited "meet and confer" rights.

Marley, a "firm believer in bargaining" who helped negotiate his first

IEA contract, knew what he was up against: a highly conservative legislature in a union-unfriendly "right to work" state.

"I realized chances for passage of these bills were not good," concedes the ESP legislation's sole sponsor, "but it was the right thing to do. It's only fair that classified employees?regarded now as throwaway people?be represented in communications with their superintendents and school boards."

Earlier this year, a group of IEA ESP members?all "at-will" employees who can be fired without a reason at any time?testified before the House Education Committee on the need for collective bargaining and basic rights.

In the opposite corner: note-scribbling administrators and school board members who grimly warned of some Pandora's box opened by bargaining.

One of the bargaining opponents' arguments gave IEA attorney John Rumel the chills. "They basically said, 'We treat our support personnel, well?they don't need rights,'" he recalls.

But ESPs' heartfelt testimony "swayed a lot of legislators," says special ed teaching assistant Connie Jamison, the ESP rep on the IEA governing board. "ESP have testified in the past on the way they're treated, and they've always left a mark."

Evidently so. Representative Marley says he's "pleased and surprised" that one of his ESP bills, the meet and confer measure, made it out of committee to the House floor. It was, unfortunately, smothered by a 20-50 vote.

"We need to keep working it," stresses Marley. But he thinks legislative action on ESP bargaining may need to shift to the state Senate floor?and await Idaho's next election cycle.

But don't expect Idaho ESP to delay their campaign for bargaining and basic rights until the next election. Here and there across the Gem State, support professionals are:

• Already bargaining. Support staffers in two districts, Idaho City and Horseshoe Bend, have won bargaining and negotiated collective agreements?without the benefit of a state law.
• Making administrators listen. Since January, Pocatello ESP have engaged in formal meet and confer discussions with district administrators. And these support staffers intend to keep pushing for full bargaining rights.
• Speaking out for rights. Post Falls ESP activist Chris Greenfield intends to stay active in IEA, pursue her lawsuit, and "test this state's antiquated laws." All unprotected ESP "need to learn their rights and start writing abuses down," she concludes. "If you think what administrators are doing can't be right, you can probably find a law they're violating!"

For updates from the Idaho Education Association, go to www.idahoea.org.

Solidarity in Idaho Wins ESP Contract

Following a path blazed earlier by colleagues in Idaho City, support professionals in Idaho's Horseshoe Bend district united with teachers in 1999, organized, and helped bargain a contract for everyone on campus?without an ESP bargaining law.

Among other features, Horseshoe Bend's 2000-01 master contract boosts the hourly rate of teacher aides to $9.43 after seven years, establishes an ESP probationary period of up to two weeks, guarantees ESP nine days of sick leave a year, and provides medical, dental, and vision care to non-certified staffers who work 20 hours or more a week.

The agreement also requires that the district "provide notice of re-employment to all non-certified employees by the earliest date." In the bad old days, "You showed up on the first day of school and hoped they had a job for you," recalls Jeanne Wilfong, an instructional aide at Horseshoe Bend High School.

Making this collective agreement possible: a new school board and ESP-friendly superintendent, lots of community support, and?yes?teacher-ESP solidarity.

"We teachers and ESP rallied together so well that we became a family," says Wilfong, the new vice president of the Horseshoe Bend Education. "Bargaining was new for teachers, too, and we all saw the tie between high Association membership and power.

"Now, you can almost make a living here as an ESP," Wilfong muses. "We've created a great environment, and we're all here for the kids!

And having a great administration really makes a difference."

"This is an exceptional group?they know we do trust and have faith in them," says Horseshoe Bend Superintendent Lewis McLin.

"We went through interest-based bargaining together and chose to build trust and look at common issues together," the superintendent points out. "We put everything on the table for all to see, so there was no hidden agenda."

The final agreement meets both staff and district needs, McLin stresses. "And classifieds at last have standards and criteria, just like teachers."