Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1514146
February 2024 isea.org • ISEA Communiqué 4 UNION MEMBERS AT WORK By Mike Wiser, editor, mike.wiser@isea.org By Sara Earleywine and Rachella Dravis, NEA directors Members represented by union attorneys get back pay plus interest. More than three dozen members of the Sibley- Ocheyedan Education Association (SOEA) split close to $200,000, including IPERS and interest, following a settlement of a breach-of-contract case brought by the union against the district. The settlement covers only those SOEA members represented by the Iowa State Education Association attorneys in the litigation. Only members of SOEA could join the suit, and some non-members joined SOEA to participate. At issue was the district's failure to pay several years of excess Teacher Quality/Teacher Salary Supplement funds which, according to their collective bargaining agreement, were supposed to go to educators but were not paid beginning in 2013-14. When the error was discovered, SOEA worked with the district to get the back pay covered. The school board approved the payments, but the eort stalled at the state's School Budget Review Committee, which needed to sign o on the extra spending authority. "After this disappointing decision, the Sibley-Ocheyedan Education Association (SOEA) leadership team started investigating alternative avenues to receive the contracted amounts," SOEA President Katie Schroder wrote in an email on behalf of the union leadership team. "It quickly became evident that the school district could only honor those contracts if litigation were led against them." Amy DeGroot-Hammer, the UniServ director who represents SOEA, helped coordinate the eort at the local level by gathering documentation and making sure members knew what they needed to provide the ISEA attorneys who were representing them in court and that deadlines were met. This led to a series of information sessions and Zoom meetings as well as outreach to members to determine how much each was potentially owed and how the lawsuit would proceed. The ISEA's lawsuit, led in Osceola County District Court, claimed three counts of breach of contract, and one count each of violation of Chapter 91A, Code of Iowa, unjust enrichment, equitable estoppel and promissory estoppel against the district. "The district was very cooperative and supportive. I would say that it was likely because the local association had a good relationship with the administration, and we were also very upfront and honest about the situation. "We just wanted to make it 'right' for our members," DeGroot-Hammer said. "We handled the situation professionally and were not there to blame or point ngers, but instead, just wanted to solve the problem and correct it." Schroder said all members received their back pay, plus interest, in November 2023. Her advice to other local presidents? Check your pay stubs and contracts. "Every district's TSS situation is dierent, so it is SOEA's recommendation to other local presidents to contact their UniServ representative and ISEA legal if they have concerns that a similar situation is happening in their districts," she said. Union wins pay dispute worth hundreds of thousands of dollars Read the column from ISEA sta attorney Becky Knutson on page 8 in this issue for more on what steps local union leadership and you can take to make sure you're being compensated correctly under the terms of your contact. Knutson led the successful litigation which resulted in the payout to Sibley- Ocheyedan members. Hello again fellow educators! We hope you were all able to nd some time over the past couple of months to relax and enjoy doing some of your favorite activities. As we wrote last time, a large part of the National Education Association director role is to represent the educators of Iowa in Washington, D.C. when we advocate for public education on Capitol Hill. But sometimes we are called in a special session to discuss pressing items that should not wait until the next in-person meeting. Over the past several months, we have had a few of those virtual special sessions all focused on one topic – sta negotiations. While we don't have enough space in this column to dive deeply into the nuances of being a member of the nation's largest public sector union and simultaneously being involved in negotiations as the employer, we want you to know that we did not take our roles in this lightly. During this process, we were given updates along the way by our negotiating team as well as by members of the sta negotiations team. We asked questions about the process and had conversations with other board members from across the country. We were asked to balance the need for our sta to feel valued as NEA team members and were reminded of our duty to be responsible duciaries of member dues. There were bumps in the almost year-long process, but in the end both teams were able to come to an agreement, which we expect to be ratied by the time you read this. It's much more than lobbying Rachella Dravis Sara Earleywine