By JOSEPH FITZGERALD

BURRILLVILLE — The School Committee is charging leaders of the teachers union with stepping up their job action strategy and threatening to throw teachers out of the union if they do not withhold even more services to students.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the committee said the leadership of the Burrillville Teachers Association has now included holiday drives, community fundraisers and participating in field trips among the services teachers are prohibited from engaging in as part of a work-to-rule strategy implemented by the union membership last year. Work-to-rule is a job action in which employees do no more than the minimum required by the terms of their contract.
The teacher’s union, a unit of the National Education Association with more than 200 cardholders, has been working without a contract since Aug. 31, 2007.
“Recently, the Burrillville Teachers Association, under the direction of the union leadership, escalated their activities,” the committee said in its statement. “It appears that the rank and file teachers are being pressured to withhold even more services to children. We understand that many teachers are unhappy with these events and are stressed.”
Union officials Tuesday called the charges “ridiculous” and nothing more than an attempt by the school administration to make the union leadership look bad.
“This is nothing more than political grandstanding and a pre-emptive strike in an attempt to discredit the union leadership,” said BTA President David Sheehan.
According to school officials, teachers have been ordered by the union leadership not to participate in fundraisers, holiday drives, book fairs, Feinstein activities, field trips, community service projects, guest speaking, Spirit Week, morning announcements, purchasing extra supplies for their classrooms and volunteering to cover classes during unassigned periods.
“Directing teachers not to contribute to holiday drives or community fundraisers that provide necessities and holiday gifts to local children or support to local families experiencing hard times has nothing to do with a teacher’s contract,” the committee’s statement said. “Ordering teachers not to provide or give their students stickers in their elementary classrooms is not going to provide any more money for higher salaries. Forbidding teachers from taking fieldtrips with their students or inviting guest speakers in their classrooms isn’t a contractual issue – it’s about hurting the educational process.”
Union leaders, the committee says, have even threatened to throw out of the union any teacher who takes part in those activities.
“We have been told that teachers may have been threatened with removal from the union, or being fined by the Burrillville Teachers Association if they do not follow the union's directives,” the committee said. “It is time that the community knows the extent to which the union leadership is willing to go to achieve their goals. The School Committee is determined to do what we can to prevent our teachers, who are dedicated and talented educators, from having to follow directives that run counter to what so many of them believe in.”
The press release issued Tuesday also stated that on Oct. 14, the School Committee will “consider and vote to immediately, and without precondition,” give a salary increase of 1.5 percent for the 2007-08 school year, and an additional 1.5 percent increase for the current school year.
“This increase doesn’t represent what the teachers truly deserve, but it is an amount the district can afford until the union leadership agrees to proposed contract reform,” the statement says. “If the union leadership and the School Committee can agree on a new contract which includes necessary reforms, we will be able to offer additional increases. We know that the vast majority of teachers work every day to provide our children with the best education possible. The Burrillville community appreciates the teachers’ efforts and we are worried that the longer this negotiation process drags on, the further teachers salaries will fall behind.”
Sheehan said that while the union membership did in fact take a vote in February to “pursue a path of contract compliance,” it has not been a true work-to-rule job action because that would entail teachers arriving no earlier than 15 minutes before the start of school and leaving no later than 15 minutes at the end of the school day. As it stands now, he said, many teachers, including himself, arrive early and stay late.
“So, we’re really not at the point of a true work-to-rule,” he said.
As for asking teachers not to participate in holiday drives and book drives, Sheehan said fundraisers should be run by the administration and that the union membership has been encouraged to donate and volunteer time to their local church or other community organizations.
As for field trips, he said the union is not asking teachers to participate in those because of the amount of personal time it takes outside the classroom to plan and coordinate such trips. Book fairs, Sheehan said, should be run by parents and take place in an area other than the school library. Therefore, librarians should be teaching their regular classes during the school day, he said.
“There is nothing wrong with any of this because this way the actual individual who does these things gets the credit not the school administration or school system,” he added.
Sheehan said the committee is “grandstanding before the election” and trying to discredit the union leadership and splinter the union membership.
“But that won’t happen because our membership is strong and united,” he said.
As for the pending vote to give teachers a 1.5 percent salary increase for the 2007-08 school year, and an additional 1.5 percent increase for the current school year, Sheehan scoffed at the notion saying the committee cannot unilaterally grant a wage increase without collective bargaining.
The School Committee, however, says parents, students and all other citizens of Burrillville need to know the lengths the union leadership is willing to go in order to “force a settlement on the town” and should be given the opportunity to voice their opposition to these tactics.
“Preventing teachers from organizing community service work with their classes, as many have done for years at community hospitals or nursing homes, not only hurts these vulnerable groups our students help, but eliminates valuable lessons from our children's educational experience,” the committee said. “Serving on the school teams that determine whether a child is evaluated for special education is a basic professional responsibility that any good teacher should be happy to participate on. The union leadership should not be forbidding teachers from participating on those very important teams.”
Last month, School Committee attorney Benjamin Scungio and the Burrillville Teachers Association wrangled over a contract proposal drafted by appointed mediator Bruce Kogun. The proposal was rejected by the School committee, which drew sharp criticism from union officials who said the committee rejected it hours after it was ratified by the union membership even though were led to believe they would approve it.
Scungio disagreed, saying union leaders knew three days before the union ratified it on Sept. 9 that the committee would reject it that night.Scungio says no one on the School Committee’s side ever gave the expectation to the union that the committee would approve the mediator’s proposal.