Outcome of Teamsters’ bid to represent CCSD workers pending

Dozens of Clark County School District’s bus drivers, janitors, cooks and other support staff hoped to learn late Wednesday what union would be representing the 11,263 workers at the bargaining table.

But that decision was postponed until Thursday morning when the Nevada Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board will rule on the validity of Teamsters Local 14’s bid to take over as the workers’ union, a role now filled by the Education Support Employees Association.

A decade-long fight between the two unions over which should represent the workers came to a head earlier this month when 71 percent of workers who voted in a special election selected the Teamsters as its representative.

However, only 5,190 votes were cast which was short of the supermajority the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled is needed for one union to oust another. The ESEA has represented CCSD support staff for more than 40 years. A supermajority means the Teamsters needed 50 percent plus one of all 11,263 support staff to choose the union, not just a majority of those who took part in an election.

On Wednesday, a conference room the size of a two-car garage at a state office building on Sahara Avenue bulged with CCSD support staff, many in black Teamsters shirts. Some angrily denounced the ESEA.

Mary Dungan, a campus security monitor at Liberty High School, urged the state board to recognize the Teamsters as the rightful union. Dungan said it would be nearly impossible to get a supermajority of support staff to vote in any election.

In essence, those who don’t vote count against the Teamsters, she said.

“It’s one man, one vote. I feel like the majority has spoken,” she said.

Dungan said too many support staff workers feel like “we are treated like dirt, like slaves.” There have been no raises and the co-payments for health insurance have skyrocketed.

She felt ESEA was not representing the workers.

Others echoed Dungan’s complaints.

Bus driver Tracy Rabb said she was an ESEA member but planned on ending her membership during a two-week window from July 1 to July 15 if the board did not install the Teamsters as the union. Rabb said she believed many of her coworkers would drop their memberships come July.

But ESEA supporters said the union was doing its best to help the workers.

Richard Mazurek, an ESEA shop steward, said those Teamster supporters didn’t represent the views of the district’s 11,000 support staff workers. He said he is always busy working to help ESEA members with any issues.

Even if the state board rejects Teamsters Local 14, the union could have another route to challenge the Education Support Employees Association.

State law requires unions that represent government workers to have more than 50 percent of a group as members to be able to bargain on their behalf. But membership in the support staff union has teetered under 50 percent in recent years.

A recent public records request by the Review-Journal showed that less than half — 5,512 — of CCSD’s support staff had membership dues deducted from their paychecks as of Feb. 4, 2015.

However paycheck deductions are not definitive; it doesn’t account for workers who may pay their dues another way. But it’s the only indicator available because unions aren’t required to release membership numbers.

Contact Francis McCabe at fmccabe@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512. Find him on Twitter: @fjmccabe