School started on August 27th, 2012. The five school days from Wednesday 9/12/2012 through Tuesday 9/18/2012 were routine work days for the teachers of LFHS. The employment contract that expired the previous summer had not yet been replaced but the teachers began the school year as they had every other school year, though this time working without a contract.

That did not mean they were working without pay – like most employed people, they were paid at the rate mutually agreed even though there was no written contract. That is how it typically works for most of us: If you show up for work, you get paid.

Past contracts even set a standard for per diem pay without regard for the contractual “lanes and steps” that govern the 182 work days of the teaching year. It is a simple pro rata calculation: The annual salary is divided by 182 and that amount is paid for each additional day.

During that period from September 12th through the 18th, the school was kept open but only three LFHS teachers reported for work. Combined, the amount of pay they were due by the pro rata per diem calculation was $7,660.

Solidarity!

The teacher’s union, the LFEA, was thinking about their next strike. The strike in September, 2012 was the first strike ever at LFHS, but it will not be the last. So the LFEA is taking this opportunity to impose punitive discipline upon its membership by preventing those three members from receiving that $7,660.

The strike in September, 2012 got the union nothing for their new contract, but it did set the stage for the next strike. Preventing the $7,660 from being paid would send a strong signal to the individual members of the teacher’s union at Lake Forest High School: Solidarity Above All! United We Stand! and Scabs Are Suckers!

The LFEA says this: The strike was settled and the basis of that settlement was memorialized in an “agreement in principle” made at 3:30 in the morning of the 19th. That agreement provided that the teachers would not be paid during the strike. The union says that this means all the teachers, whether the individual was striking or working.

The LFEA says that rewarding teachers for working (by paying them) is an “unfair labor practice” like when a union thug slashes the car tires of an LFHS administrator. (Slashing tires being a traditional union activity; paying employees for working being a traditional employer activity.) The LFEA says that the school district should not be allowed to hire strike-breakers.

Notice the surgical cynicism of the LFEA: If the school district paid non-LFEA folks, the teacher’s union would have no say. But if the school district pays LFEA members, the LFEA objects.

The school district says that they routinely hire teachers, that they routinely pay them, that the striking teachers were paid for working in the fall of 2012 prior to the strike and while it is true that, by specific agreement, the teachers who were on strike will not be paid during the time they were on strike, the teachers who were not on strike will be paid. Complicated sentence; simple idea.

Another part of the “agreement in principle” said that all grievances made prior to or during the strike would be dismissed, but the $7,660 grievance was made after the strike was settled, and so the LFEA effectively keeps the strike going. The LFEA and the school district went to mediation.

Hidden agendas.

I spoke to Helen Higgins, General Counsel for the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. She was also the mediator for the $7,660 grievance of the LFEA. The idea of mediation, she explained, is to avoid the risk and expense of a legal struggle. She said that 90 percent of disputes are settled by mediation and go no further.

She smiled as she told me that the $7,660 was one of her failures as a mediator.

Ms. Higgins said that the parties to a mediation are free to drag new issues into the mediation as either demands or concessions. She hinted that the failure in this case was due to concerns brought about by recent Illinois laws relating to teacher evaluations and teacher pensions.

Most grievances are handled at the local level. The $7,660 had moved from the local level to mediation, and has now moved on to litigation. The taxpayers of District 115 and the LFEA have now spent more than $7,660 on lawyers. Notice that the school district could have saved the lawyer cost and also save the original $7,660 by simply not paying those three teachers.

But this was never about the teachers. This is about the strike-breakers.

Scorched earth:

The first court of the litigation process takes place at the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, where Ms. Higgins works. Lawyers for the school district and for the LFEA interrogated witnesses and introduced other evidence before Administrative Law Judge Strizak on February 19, 2014.

The hired union lawyer is Ms. Rachel E. Clark. The unpaid elected school board president is Mr. Todd Burgener.

Clark: Mr. Burgener, do you know the meaning of the work “employee?”

Burgener: Yes, I do.

Clark: Do you know the meaning of the word “strike?”

Burgener: Yes, I do.

Clark: Do you know the meaning of the phrase “on strike?”

Burgener: As opposed to just the work “strike?” I believe I do.

Clark: Okay. So you know the difference between the word “strike” and the phrase “on strike.”

Burgener: (Since Ms. Clark did not ask a question and since she merely confirmed Mr. Burgener’s answer to her previous question, Mr. Burgener simply nodded acknowledgment and waited for her to ask a question.)

Clark: Yes? I can, she can’t, he can’t hear your head rattle, so you have to say yes or no.

Burgener: Oh, did you hear my head rattle? I don’t believe so.

Clark: When you nod.

Burgener: Okay….

This is the courtroom equivalent of slashing tires. The unpaid, elected school board President, who lives in the district and pays taxes to the district and sends his children to the district school is summoned to the witness stand and told by the union’s hired gun that his head rattles. Funny stuff.

This juvenile humor of a union goon is the result of the LFEA’s contention that their members who cross the picket line should not be paid. Briefs are due the third week of April, 2014 with a ruling to follow. Appeal is to the state courts. If it goes that far, the Illinois Supreme Court will finally resolve this matter sometime within the next decade.

So I wonder: If the LFEA prevails in 2022 (after perhaps two more strikes) will the three teachers have to refund their $7,660? I suppose it doesn’t really matter any more than the lawyer costs mattered. After all, the real point is union discipline during those future strikes.


Update:  On June 17, 2014, 21 months after the strike, the IELRB ruled against the frivolous LFEA complaint. In theory, the union has 21 days to appeal, but there could be "exceptions" that are not timely.  If the IELRB makes a Final Order at their August meeting, it will be over. It will be interesting to know how much the taxpayers have been forced to spend on this process to prevent an ugly precedent.


Update: On August 21, 2014, 23 months after the strike, the IELRB held its monthly meeting. They issued “final orders” for six cases. LFHS was not among them. It seems the LFEA is appealing their loss to the state courts. The board paid three teachers $7,660 to work during the strike and the board will now have to pay perhaps $76,600 to establish their right to pay their teachers.  Great.