By Ben Ducoff, Staff Writer
October 15th–The Beachwood Board of Education held a special meeting Friday afternoon, two weeks after the State Employment Relations Board, or SERB, heard arguments regarding the board’s recent decision to outsource the Transportation Department. During the standing-room only meeting, the school board hired back all twenty-four of its bus drivers and mechanics.
Last July, all drivers and mechanics were laid off after Beachwood signed a contract with Community Bus Services, or CBS. Susan Muskovitz, attorney for the Ohio Federation of Teachers, or OFT, believed that the decision was a direct response to the “support staff’s petition to unionize in February.”
David Ostro, President of the Beachwood City School Board, read a prepared statement at the meeting that said, “The board maintains that the decision to pursue outsourcing was unrelated to and not motivated by any efforts the bus drivers and mechanics may have undertaken to form a union.” Ostro also said that the decision to outsource was considered all the way back in 2008 when the food services department was outsourced to AVI.
Kim Luther, field representative for OFT, was in attendance at the special board meeting, and made a statement thanking the school board for making “the right decision.”
Allan Bobincheck, who had been a district bus driver for the past nineteen years before being laid off, also made a statement thanking the school board. “I hope we can work together in the future,” he said.
According to the Board of Education, CBS will remain on contract to oversee the operations of the Transportation Department, but all drivers and mechanics will be employees of the district.
School Board Outsources Bus Drivers (published October 14th)
The Beachwood City Schools Department of Transportation is no more. At a special school board meeting on July 6th, the Transportation Department was outsourced to Community Bus Services, Incorporated, or CBS. The series of resolutions passed by the board identified operational efficiency and overall cost savings as motivations for the action.
Twenty-four bus drivers and mechanics were laid off. CBS stated that all of the former Beachwood drivers and mechanics could reapply for their jobs to be rehired by CBS on the same day. According to Beachcomber sources, all but three were hired back.
At the July meeting, School Board President David Ostro made a statement explaining the school board’s action. He said, “a core responsibility and obligation” of the school board is to protect the general fund balance, and “to seek sensible means and methods to maintain this balance through improved efficiency in our operations and controlled, if not
reduced, costs.”
Kim Luther, field representative for the Ohio Federation of Teachers, or OFT, said that CBS promised to save the District 357,000 in its first contract year, but she is skeptical of the dramatic drop in expenses. “That’s almost one-thousand dollars a day,” she said, “I’m not sure that’s possible.
Superintendent Dr. Richard Markwardt declined to comment for this article. He replied in an email, “this is a pending legal matter, I can’t discuss it.”
The school district’s attorney did not respond to request for comment.
Stephanie Novinc was an educational aide who worked with the Hospitality and Food Service Excel Tecc program. Like the rest of the support staff, which includes custodial workers, bus drivers, and other members of staff not on faculty, she was on a contract that was not protected by the OFT union.
“Last September, the school board called us in and informed us that we had a new handbook,” she said, “and the handbook informed us that the sick days we took could be used against us, and that we couldn’t take personal days on Fridays or Mondays,” she said.
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Philip Wagner explained, “if an employee has more than three days of absence that are not related to a Family Medical Leave Act, the fourth day would result in a verbal warning.”
The handbook stated that each sick leave absence beyond three absences in a year (without a doctor’s note) would count as an occurrence of absenteeism.
Novinc contacted Kim Luther, and the support staff began its campaign to create a union. It was the impression of Luther
and Novinc that the district administration was not happy about the efforts to unionize the support staff.
“They kept finding excuses to stall hearings about the unionization,” said Novinc, “we just wanted protection for our employment and our rights.”
An official petition for unionization was filed in February 2010. Hearings about unionization were delayed until July, when they announced that they were outsourcing the Transportation Department, which represented twenty-five percent
of what would have made up the support staff union.
Susan Muskovitz, legal representative for OFT, explained that although the administration claimed that it had been planning to abolish the transportation department since 2008, she viewed the act as “blatantly anti-union.”
“This violates section 4117 of the Ohio Revised Code, which states that a public employer cannot interfere with its employees joining or creating a union,” said Muskovitz.
Kim Luther agreed. “They wanted to set an example to the support staff, and by doing so they broke the law.”
“They were hired back, but lost a lot,” Luther said. “They took a fifty percent pay reduction. They lost most of their health care benefits. They lost their vacations and sick days. Drivers used to get six to eight hours of driving a day. Now
they’re lucky if they get four. And for field trips and other special trips, CBS brings in their own drivers.”
At publication, CBS has not responded to the Beachcomber’s request for comment on these issues.
After the decision to outsource, OFT filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with Ohio’s State Employment
Relations Board, or SERB. SERB is a sate-run agency that helps to maintain labor and management
relations between public employers and employees. On August 12th, SERB ruled that there was “probable
cause” of anti-union activity from the Beachwood City School District.
A hearing in Columbus in front of SERB’s board of directors took place on September 29th. Charges have been filed against the Beachwood City School District to the state Attorney General’s office.
“If SERB rules in favor of OFT, then all of the drivers and mechanics will be reinstated,” said Muskovitz. “Beachwood will pay a fine, and CBS’s contract will be void.”
Upon the layoffs of the bus drivers and mechanics, Novinc resigned from her position as an education
aide at BHS. She now works as a substitute for the Orange and Cleveland Heights-University Heights
school districts.
At the board meeting in July, Allan Bobincheck, who has been employed a bus driver by the district
for the past nineteen years, wondered why the “administration did not come to the drivers for input,” if
cost savings were such an issue.
SERB plans on making a decision within the next thirty days to determine whether Beachwood City
Schools has violated Ohio Revised Code.
