Chicago School Reform Board of Trustes v. Illinois Educational Relations Board

734 N.E.2d 69, 315 Ill. App. 3d 522, 248 Ill. Dec. 361
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided July 20, 2000·No. 1-99-1804·Published·Cited by 21 cases

Opinion

JUSTICE HALL

delivered the opinion of the court:

This action is brought by the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees (the CSRBT) on a petition for administrative review of an opinion and order entered by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board (the Board). The respondent, Chicago Teachers Union, Local 1, AFT-IFT, AFL-CIO (the Union), filed an unfair labor practice charge against the CSRBT, before the Board, alleging that the CSRBT violated sections 14(a)(5) and, derivatively, 14(a)(1) of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act (the Act) (115 ILCS 5/14(a)(5), (a)(1) (West 1996)), by refusing to bargain collectively in good faith by refusing to provide the Union with certain requested information. On April 23, 1999, the Board ruled that the CSRBT had violated those sections of the Act and ordered, inter alia, that the CSRBT furnish the Union with the requested information. The CSRBT filed its timely petition for review with this court on May 28, 1999. See 115 ILCS 5/16(a) (West 1996). For the reasons that follow, we affirm. The following facts are relevant to this appeal.

I. BACKGROUND

During the summer of 1997, the CSRBT reconstituted seven Chicago high schools. Reconstitution is one of several options available to the CSRBT, pursuant to statute, for schools that have been previously placed on probation but have failed to correct deficiencies after a maximum of one year. 105 ILCS 5/34 — 8.3 (West 1996). The reconstituted schools were DuSable, Englewood, Harper, King, Orr, Phillips, and Robeson. The effect of the reconstitution was that all employees of the schools, including teachers and principals, were displaced and required to interview with the CSRBT for reassignment to the positions they held prior to the reconstitution.

Gail Koffman, assistant to the president of field services for the Chicago Teachers Union, testified for the Union. Koffman testified that the interviews were conducted by interview teams. Following the interviews the teachers were notified as to whether they were selected for reassignment. The Union requested a fist of all teachers who were not retained at their prior high schools. Koffman testified that 188 out of approximately 700 teachers were not reassigned to the positions they held prior to the reconstitution. Six out of eleven union delegates were not retained. The teachers who were not retained were offered no explanation for their displacement, even though many had received “superior” or “excellent” performance evaluations throughout their tenures. Pursuant to the CSRBT’s reassignment and layoff policy, those teachers who were not retained remained employees of the CSRBT for 10 months, during which time they were required to actively seek a position elsewhere within the Chicago public schools. Any teacher who did not acquire another position within this period was laid off and given an honorable termination from service. Koffman admitted that all 188 teachers remained employed by the CSRBT following the reconstitution and that as of the date of the hearing not one teacher had been laid off.

According to Koffman, the Union received complaints from its members regarding the manner in which the interviews were conducted. Several members felt that they were not retained due to their union activities or age or race discrimination and requested that the Union file grievances on their behalf. The Union wanted to investigate these charges. Consequently, on August 15, 1997, Thomas Reece, president of the Union, tendered a written request for certain information to the CSRBT, in accordance with the provisions of article 1 — 7 1 of the 1995-99 collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The following information was requested: (1) the names of the members of the interview teams who conducted the interviews at each of the seven reconstituted high schools and the criteria by which each of the team members were selected; (2) the instructions given to the members of the interview teams; (3) the questions that were asked of the classroom and nonclassroom teachers and career service members of the Union bargaining unit; (4) the criteria for appointing or not appointing teachers and career service members of the Union bargaining unit; and (5) . copies of all reports the interview teams submitted to the CSRBT. Koffman testified that all of the requested information was needed to explore the legitimacy of the complaints that teachers were not retained based upon age, race and union activity or membership. The requested information was deemed vital by the Union for assessing whether members had grievable discrimination claims based upon the reconstitution interview process.

Receiving no response to its request for information, the Union proceeded to file grievances on behalf of three members. Each of the grievances contended that the CSRBT had violated one or more of the nondiscrimination provisions of the CBA. The first grievance was filed on August 21, 1997, on behalf of Union delegate Stuart Switt. The grievance alleged that the CSRBT violated the terms of the CBA by not retaining Switt at Robeson High School because of his Union activities. A second grievance was filed on September 3, 1997, on behalf of Patricia Michaels. The grievance alleged that the CSRBT refused to retain her at Órr High School, despite her 27 years of “superior” performance evaluations, because of her Union affiliation and activities. A third grievance was filed on September 5, 1997, on behalf of Jay Freeman, a teacher who was not retained at Englewood High School. It alleged that the interview process lacked any objective criteria and was demeaning and discriminatory.

On September 4, 1997, Timothy D. Brandhust, the director of the bureau of labor and employee relations for the Chicago public schools, refused to supply the requested information on the basis that “[t]he Union is not entitled to the requested information under [article 1 — 7 of the CBA].”

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Chicago School Reform Board of Trustes v. Illinois Educational Relations Board, 734 N.E.2d 69, 315 Ill. App. 3d 522, 248 Ill. Dec. 361 (Ill. Ct. App. 2000).

734 N.E.2d 69 (Chicago School Reform Board of Trustes v. Illinois Educational Relations Board) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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