Warren County Technical School loses second consecutive arbitration to employees' union

FRANKLIN TWP. | Warren County Technical School owes five former staff members more than $8,000 combined in back pay, an independent arbitrator determined this week.

The former employees -- including a teacher who died while on sick leave -- are entitled to the retroactive pay for time worked between July 1, 2006, and when they left the district before a new contract was approved, according to Monday's decision issued by arbitrator Barbara Zausner.

The advisory decision marks the second recent victory for the Warren Tech Education Association, which has taken five grievances with the school board to arbitration.

Another arbitrator issued the first of the decisions last month, saying the school board violated its contract with the union by not giving one employee the same salary increases as her colleagues. If the school board rejects either decision, the union is prepared to sue the district.

The union and the school board have been at odds recently over the dismissal of culinary arts teacher Joe Delesky. The school board dismissed Delesky in April because he lacks the qualifications to run the new hospitality, tourism and culinary arts program.

"All we're doing is protecting our contract and protecting our members," union President Ed Yarusinsky said.

Chief School Administrator Robert Glowacky, school board President Bradley Bartow and attorney Allan P. Dzwilewski, who represented the school board in both recent arbitrations, did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

Following two years of negotiations, the school board approved the new contract last summer and sent out nearly $300,000 in retroactive paychecks.

The school board denied back pay to the five former employees because they left the district before the contract went into effect, according to background on the case in the arbitrator's decision. There was no past practice supporting an obligation for retroactive pay for former employees, the decision reads.

The school board claimed it notified union members in a Feb. 20, 2008, letter that former employees would not receive back pay, but Zausner wrote that she does not view the letter as any form of notice to the union of the board's retroactive policy.

Ultimately, the contract was ratified without referring to the terms of that letter, Zausner wrote.

"None of (the five employees) was made aware of the board's claimed policy on retroactive payments before leaving the district," Zausner wrote.

Zausner approved retroactive payments for the following former staff members: Kathy Parisi, $2,019; Barbara Harrison, $1,755.19; Lindsay Szabo, $2,019; Steve Stuppiello, $2,019; and Ann Steckle, $302.85.

By splitting the expense of hiring arbitrators in the two recent cases, the union and the school board each were left with a cost of $4,000, according to John Ropars, field representative for the New Jersey Education Association. That amount does not include any potential legal fees incurred by the district.

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