New Experience for Espanola-NEA

Hello Fellow Members!

We had a totally new experience in the annals of Espanola-NEA yesterday. You should have been there! Ha. That was actually not the place for all of us to be, but here is where I was, and why it was such a new experience.

I (Brian Every, President Espanola-NEA) was with Juan Montoya of PELRB (Public Employees Labor Relations Board), Dr. Cockerham (Superintendent, Espanola Public Schools), and Charles Goodmacher (NEA UniServ Consultant) at Mr. Montoya's office on Coors Blvd in Albuquerque. We were there, at a legal hearing as total equals to Dr. Cockerham. It was the first time that I am aware of where we, Espanola-NEA and Espanola Public Schools met as total equals. This was not our usual stand before the Board, or meet with Dr. Cockerham at his office, we asking (begging) for some favor or boon,and they having every right to refuse it. NO, this was the two of us standing before a higher authority, each with equal rights, each with our own story, our own wants and needs, negotiating the future. No superior, no inferior, just two equal entities trying to settle on how things are going to go.

I was also impressed by the fact that it became clear to me in that meeting that we were going to end up with collective bargaining. Dr. Cockerham had originally submitted every name of every person in the district as part of our bargaining unit. Even his own! Imagine, he wanted us to represent him! In all we submitted a list of 73 names of district employees who we thought should be excluded from the bargaining unit, and once Dr. Cockerham saw them, pretty much agreed that these people should be excluded.

It was also obvious that this was another stalling tactic. In fact if I got one thing out of the entire hour plus meeting it was that Dr. Cockerham and possibly the School Board are going to stall at every possible opportunity. This was an obvious stall because Dr. Cockerham and his new lawyer, John Martinez, widely known around the state to represent school boards against Employees, had to have known that Dr. Cockerham and the other 73 people on our list were not eligible to be part of the bargaining unit. So instead of our having walked out of there with an agreement on who was part of the bargaining unit. What we got was..."I will have to look this over and get back to you." from Dr. Cockerham. Another few days between now and our sitting down to negotiate. In fact he said, and this is a direct quote "I am not in any hurry!" in response to setting a date for the next meeting.

I say the school board might possibly be involved in the stalling action because I wondered how much of the real truth the school board was getting. I am not saying that Dr. Cockerham was not telling them the truth, but you know how you can slant any story, spin any situation to favor one side or another. Dr. Cockerham and the school board have hired an attorney, John Martinez, who is well known for making his living fighting for school boards and against employee interests. This is also the reasoning behind the tactic of the school board voting for forming a local labor board, because that can take time, time for PELRB to approve the local labor board, time to assemble it, time for it to get it together to hear anything...sometimes as much as a year. Aren't we glad that their decision to form a local labor board came after our petition for Collective Bargaining? Because we filed first, the state labor board will hear all issues related to our certification for exclusive bargaining rights, not the local labor board, so we will proceed forward as quickly as possible with out the delay they tried to create by creating an expensive to the district, local labor board.

Yet another stalling tactic Dr. Cockerham trotted out at the meeting yesterday was his insistence on creating two bargaining units (after it was pointed out to him that he and the other administrators, principals, etc couldn't be in the bargaining unit) one for certified and one for classified employees. He was concerned that we had different issues and that the teachers would over ride, or ignore our fellow employees, the custodians, the cooks, the secretaries. Look at their pay raises this coming year, and see if you can figure out who is really ignoring them!

It turns out that the Labor Board will decide what the appropriate bargaining unit is, and even if we are split into two bargaining unit, there is only one union, us, and we decide who sits at the negotiating table, and our MEMBERS decide if they like what we agreed to or not. NOT THE NEGOTIATING TEAM. So while again this may delay actually sitting down at the table by a few days it is not anything other than another sign of the fear that Dr. Cockerham, and possibly the board has of meeting with us as equals and trying to figure out what is really best for our kids.

Signs of desperation abound, hiring an expensive attorney to advise them, setting up an expensive local labor board, stalling at every possible turn. Think of how much money Dr. Cockerham and the school board is wasting trying to keep from meeting with us as equals - while at the same time the board approved a nearly $7,000 raise for Dr. Cockerham. Need any chalk, or white board markers, cleaning supplies, a new mop? Or construction paper, text books, a new broom, or other school supplies? Maybe you need to buy them from your own huge raise because the district keeps pleading poverty to us doesn't it?

I have a lot more I want to tell about many things that have been happening the past several weeks, I hope to get that info up here soon. Please let me know you are checking in and if you are ready to help us in our efforts for fair and equitable treatment. We are organizing all kinds of committees to deal with the many different aspects of being a truly representational organization and we can use all the help we can get. Just think, if everyone of our membership volunteered one hour a month to our efforts what we could accomplish.

Oh, and by the way, after reducing the districts 'bargaining unit' to the appropriate size, we had 77% of the eligible district employees signing the cards in the card drive, not the 64.47% that included Dr. Cockerham. I think maybe we do need to represent him too, what do you think?