Union rallies against planned layoffs at Vallejo school district meeting

VALLEJO – Over 80 members of a union representing school district staff and their supporters rallied outside of the Vallejo City Unified School District offices on Mare Island Tuesday, in protest of mass layoffs of union members slated to go into effect next school year.

The Vallejo chapter of the California School Employees Association, or CSEA, which represents classified staff who hold non-managerial roles which don’t require a teaching certificate, held Tuesday’s protest. Its members include teaching assistants, food service, maintenance, office staff, and many others. 

Last month, CSEA filed unfair labor practice charges against the district with a state agency that oversees public employment alleging that the district has violated the law in how it’s handled the layoffs. 

The planned layoffs could have widespread effects. In February, the school board agreed to cut roughly 130 full-time CSEA positions, almost doubling the proposed cuts it agreed to in December. Both votes were unanimous and saw no debate among board members. Vallejo’s CSEA chapter has about 615 members, so if 130 CSEA members lose their jobs, that would encompass over 20% of its members.

According to CSEA labor relations representative Jeremy Arnold, the figure of 130 full-time position cuts likely means that considerably more people will lose their jobs, as many CSEA members work part time. The district hasn’t said how many total workers are slated to be laid off.

During Tuesday’s rally, workers insisted that their jobs are essential, and that the district has no plan for who will do their work should they be laid off. 

Nikki Martinez, an academic support provider who is currently slated to be laid off, talked about what she sees as the harmful effects that mass cuts of CSEA workers would have on the community. She was surrounded by protestors wearing blue CSEA shirts who held signs that said “stop the cuts” and “who will do the work?”

“Everyone here, all the students we serve, everyone that sees us everyday when we walk onto a school site, all of them are going to be affected,” Martinez said. “And does the district know that? No. They ignore all that and don’t want to know what the impact is going to be because it’s easier to say ‘these are the numbers, let’s cut right here.’ They don’t want to listen to us and hear the reality of things.”

District leadership and school board members say that due over 20 years of declining enrollment, and pressure from the state and county, deep staffing reductions are necessary to keep the district fiscally solvent and free from state oversight. The district has also attributed these factors when deciding to close five schools last year.

In an email to the Vallejo Sun, district spokesperson Celina Baguiao said that the district is “navigating a projected $32 million budget shortfall over the next two years,” and that “correcting this structural deficit now requires the difficult step of reducing more than 220 positions across multiple employee groups.”

Baguiao said that the “reductions are occurring across the entire organization,” and that “management positions are being reduced by 20%.” She added that CSEA positions make up the largest total number of cuts because they “represent the largest portion of the district’s workforce.”

In February, the district also voted to eliminate roughly 70 full-time teaching positions, four counseling positions, and roughly 20 managerial positions which include three principal and vice principal positions. 

Arnold said in an interview that some of the district’s proposed cuts to CSEA positions include ones that would violate California’s Education Employment Relations Act, which bars schools from laying off union workers and then transferring tasks that were assigned to them to contractors or other employees without bargaining with the union.

“Part of the problem is the district has not told us who will do the work of the employees it will lay off. We have jobs and duties as a union,” Arnold said. “And it can’t be transferred to contractors and other employees.” 

While three schools are scheduled for closure next school year, meaning there is less total work for employees to do, Arnold outlined examples of jobs that can’t logically be eliminated, explaining that the district intends to lay off its only plumber, locksmith, and electrician. 

“If you are a school district and you’re laying off the plumber, you cannot logically say there is no work,” Arnold said. “The only logical solution is the pipes will remain clogged or they want to do something unlawful with that work, like calling a plumbing agency.”

The elimination of these positions without bargaining over where their tasks will be transferred is the subject of an unfair practice charge CSEA filed against the district in February to California’s Public Employee Relations Board. Arnold said the union is asking the district to “take back layoffs” related to this complaint.

Baguiao said that the district “takes its obligations under collective bargaining law seriously” but that since this complaint and others are active, the district “believes the appropriate venue to address them is through established legal and labor relations process rather than through the media.”

CSEA filed two other charges against the district with the board. One was about the district allegedly not complying with laws that require the district to release information to the union including allegations the district delayed releasing requested information about executive salaries and benefits, and released incomplete information in response to union inquiries about use of third party contractors, including for plumbing work.

Another charge alleges that the district unilaterally instituted a retirement incentive plan to CSEA workers instead of bargaining over it with the union. The school board approved the plan unanimously last month to offer a $1,000 bonus to eligible employees who agree to resign starting next school year, but Arnold said the union wanted to bargain over it, and the district was legally required to allow them to do so.

“This should have been bargained with the union,” Arnold said. “We’re not totally opposed to retirement incentives but we must respect the process.”

During a public comment during the board meeting on Tuesday, CSEA President Kat Salas-Teitgan spoke to the gravity of these charges.

“CSEA does not file these kinds of charges lightly,” Salas-Teitgan said. “When we take those steps, it is because there are serious concerns that our bargaining rights are not being respected. CSEA members may not run this district, but we do have rights, and we will stand up for those rights with everything we have.”

The meeting ended up being a contentious one. At the start of the meeting, after the seats in the room filled up with protestors, school board President Glenn Amboy asked that the remaining standing protesters leave the room. Protestors responded by chanting “go away? No way!” Protestors shouted “you can’t stop us from talking” and “we’re not going anywhere.” Amboy said, “if you’re deciding not to move we will move to a short recess.”

After about 20 minutes, the board returned from recess. Security asked people to move away from the doors, but no one was removed from the room. 

Over the course of the meeting, 15 people spoke out in support of CSEA during public comments. The speakers mostly were CSEA members, but members of the teachers union, the Vallejo Education Association, or VEA, also spoke out in support, and union President Kevin Steele said “VEA stands with CSEA.” Several figures of the greater Bay Area labor movement, like Glenn Loveall, executive director of the Napa-Solano Central Labor Council, also spoke in support.

CSEA member and site safety supervisor Aubrey Cosentino said her and other union member work is essential, and questioned who would do the work if she and her co-workers were laid off.

“I ask you to take a good long hard look at the list of people being cut,” Cosentino said. “Those are not just positions. Those are people in these jobs. Look at them. They’re here. Now ask yourself who is going to do the work? When you cut them, are you planning to contract the work out?”

The board did not take any action on the cuts to CSEA during Tuesday’s meeting. Although it has already committed to reducing roughly 130 CSEA positions, it can reverse or rework its layoff decision as long as it does so by May 15, the last date when school districts in California have to inform staff that they are being laid off.

Arnold said he’s hopeful that the board will reverse at least some of the CSEA layoffs.

“This is far from over,” Arnold said. “There are several school board meetings before May 15 where the board could still do the right thing.”