November 30, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 3 Mahwah Teachers charge school board with unfair labor practice by Frank J. McMahon The Mahwah Education Association has filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Mahwah Board of Education with the Public Employee Relations Commission, claiming the school district has failed to provide the union with the documents it needs to negotiate a new contract. School Board First Vice President/ Negotiating Committee Chairman Charles Saldarini and School Business Administrator Edward Deptula recently told the school board that the Negotiating Committee has provided a lot of information to the MEA, including the district’s recent audit, even though some of the information is readily available. Their response to the MEA’s unfair labor practice charge came during an update on the negotiations provided at a recent school board meeting. According to Saldarini and Deptula, the information the MEA requested included documents that are available on the school board’s agenda or as public documents. They said other requests, however, involved an extensive number of pages and they could not come to an agreement with the MEA on whether they should pay a charge for duplicating those documents according to state law. Saldarini and Deptula also told the board that some of the information requested is not available, and some documents requested by the MEA contain individual health record information that is not a matter of the public record and will not be provided. They said the MEA accused the board’s Negotiating Committee of not bargaining in good faith by not providing the information requested, but the committee felt some of the information requested is not relevant to the negotiations. Therefore, the committee told the MEA they were finished providing information. “We feel that what should be provided to them has been provided,” Saldarini said. Saldarini advised the board, however, that there may not be a decision in the unfair labor practice matter until June 2012. He said the Negotiating Committee will meet in closed session with the school board to decide how to respond to the MEA’s recent action. The MEA, which represents the district’s teachers, secretaries, custodians and maintenance staff, school bus drivers, and school aides, has been involved in negotiations with the school board since February 2010, according to Saldarini. The last contract with the MEA expired in June 2010. Saldarini told the board that the MEA originally would not discuss health benefits as part of the negotiations, which was a major concern. That concern was mitigated when the state mandated that all public employees must pay 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their health benefit costs. He also advised there were two negotiating sessions with the MEA before the union filed a petition with PERC to go into an impasse process in March 2010. When an impasse is declared, a mediator is assigned by the state. That individual reviews the facts presented by both sides in the dispute and then makes a non-binding recommendation for settlement. Fact-finding follows mediation. Saldarini explained that the impasse process is a complicated one, which is subject to the availability of mediators and fact-finders, who are hard to find. He said scheduling a meeting has been difficult and time consuming because of the need to coordinate the schedules of all those involved in the process. He attributed that to the fact that the MEA has a large Negotiating Committee, including some members of the New Jersey Education Association. As a result, a factfinding meeting could not be scheduled until Dec. 15. Deptula emphasized that the impasse process is slow, which he described a frustrating. Saldarini explained that the impasse process does not permit face-to-face negotiating and the mediator or fact-finder must talk separately with each party and move back and forth between the two parties to conduct the negotiations. “We asked the MEA for a face-to-face negotiation,” Saldarini said, “but we were told they prefer the impasse process and that’s where we stand.” Laura Beattie, president of the MEA, responded to the comments by Saldarini and Deptula saying the MEA filed an unfair labor practice action against the board based on their failure to negotiate. She explained that the unfair labor practice action was filed against the board, not due to the quality of the information it has received, but because the MEA has not received many of the documents originally requested in June 2011. That information included budget and insurance information and costs, in addition to information about what monies the district would be receiving (continued on page 23)