Community Stands United With School Employees
Parents, Clergy, & Electeds Condemn Register’s Anti-Worker Policies
Over 250 parents, children, clergy, and elected officials came to the Metro School Board meeting on Feb. 14 to show their “love” for school employees and to voice their concerns about the recent actions by Dr. Jesse Register which has resulted in angry employees, bad morale, and a
resolution last week by the Metro Council which condemned Register’s actions.
Recent changes to the Metro Nashville Public School (MNPS) Support Employee Handbook have robbed vital school employees, such as school secretaries, education assistants, interpreters, campus supervisors, and food service workers of their voices and their job security, according to officials at SEIU Local 205, one of the labor unions representing support personnel working at MNPS. “Dr. Register’s changes to the Support Staff Handbook offer no benefits to our schools and is simply bad business,” said
Doug Collier, President of Local 205. “The handbook is creating an unsustainable work environment that has serious potential to undermine employee morale, cause damaging job turnover and create unnecessary volatility within our public schools”.
Dr. Register and the administration have repeatedly cited two pieces of legislation to justify Register’s decision to rescind the city’s Labor Negotiations Policy and to impose a new employee handbook on workers without their input. But elected officials with experience in state legislation and the workings of the School Board shot down Register’s arguments. State Representative
Mike Turner (D-Old Hickory) presented the board with a letter from the Tennessee School Board Association (which the Metro School Board is a member of) that debunked Dr. Register’s claim that entering into a Memorandum of Understanding with unions is “illegal”. “The collective bargaining bill has absolutely nothing to do with MOU’s,” Turner said. Turner’s argument echoed a statement from
Karen Johnson, a former school board member who served on the board when their Governance Policy was debated in 2003. “"I was there when that Governance Policy was debated," Johnson said at last week’s Metro Council meeting, where she currently serves as a council member. "The Director of Schools cannot overturn board policy." Former council member
Vivian Wilhoite, who has a son attending school in Metro, explained the value of having an agreement between the unions and the School Board. “The agreement creates a framework and a forum for the workers to have their issues addressed,” Wilhoite said. “If we take that framework away, the only recourse for workers is going to be to file a lawsuit against MNPS. None of us wants money that could be used for education tied up on lawsuits if we can avoid it. And we can.”
Many parents and their children were in attendance at the meeting holding up signs and red Valentine stickers that showed their love of Metro Schools employees. “I feel better knowing that there are good people at my girls’ school taking care of them,” says
Susanna Keyes, a parent with two daughters at a West Nashville elementary school. “It is not an exaggeration to say that they form the backbone of our schools. They make our schools a better place and it is wrong to treat them so poorly in return.”
Community concerns come in the wake of last week’s Metro Council resolution, which urged Dr. Register and the School Board to abide by its own Labor Negotiations Policy, which was first adopted in July, 2000. That policy clearly allowed that employees have the right to form and join a union and a right to meet and confer with the Director of Schools on matters related to pay, working conditions, and other conditions of employment. The MNPS Labor Negotiations Policy had been “rescinded” by Dr. Register at the end of last year, even though the Board has never taken any action to rescind or change that policy. Dr. Register's other anti-worker decision - to rewrite the Support Employee Handbook without input from employees and without approval from the Board - also demonstrates a disregard for Board policy and the productive relationships between the unions and administrators that has existed for over a decade.
“I ask that the School Board stay compliant with Tennessee law and fully uphold their responsibility to the policy-making body that the public elected,” said Collier.