The state’s public employees labor watchdog recently called out Clovis Unified School District for financially supporting the Faculty Senate, a district-sanctioned group of teachers that is supposed to function as a representative of the district’s educators.
However, a local labor group said the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) ruling does not go far enough and also should have included an order for the district’s Faculty Senate to be disbanded. The complaint and general push for a Clovis teachers’ union is backed by the Association of Clovis Educators (ACE), a group that has been organizing and trying to unionize Clovis educators since 2020.
Backed by the California Teachers Association, ACE aims to be the only employee union or employee representation group at Clovis Unified. Though the school district remains without a teachers’ union, ACE did unionize psychologists and mental health service providers, which resulted in the first-ever union contract in the district approved last year.
“Clovis educators will never be free to choose their own way while their employer continues to present the illegally imposed Faculty Senate as a valid option,” said ACE’s Dec. 27 statement announcing its appeal.
Clovis Unified, with more than 42,800 students and 6,400 full- and part-time employees, is the largest district in the state without a teachers union. The district has resisted unionization, as have some of its teachers over the years.
The issue is important because Faculty Senate does not bargain collectively or negotiate with the district for teacher’s rights and benefits, said Kristin Heimerdinger, ACE spokesperson and teacher at Buchanan High School. Rather, Faculty Senate informs employees of district decisions and updates, and there are no clear guidelines for bargaining and employee-district grievance resolution processes.
Clovis Unified spokesperson Kelly Avants said that the district, according to the PERBS’s ruling, will stop financially supporting Faculty Senate and that the employee group can continue to exist. Because “many items” that were brought forward against the district by ACE were dismissed or have been resolved, Avants said Clovis Unified had no need to appeal the Dec. 7 ruling.
Clovis Unified’s Faculty Senate was founded in 1977 with support from Dr. Floyd “Doc” Buchanan, the school district’s founding superintendent, as an employee representation group. In 1984, the PERB found the district and Faculty Senate violating the Educational Employment Relations Act (EERA).
Despite that decision, ACE claims the school district failed to cease and desist its unlawful actions, as the PERB ordered back then, and continued to violate state law for decades, intentionally keeping employees from unionizing.
The latest PERB ruling from Dec. 7 concluded that the school district and Faculty Senate were breaking the law because the district provided assistance and support to the Faculty Senate – such as paid for and/or supplied member allowances for phone bills, a vehicle, technology (such as district-owned laptops and district-paid-for software), offices, office supplies, business cards, copier expenses, meeting refreshments – and did not provide the same support for other employee groups.
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Avants said the district had already stopped providing release time, office space, a cell phone, the district vehicle and technical support for Faculty Senate projects over the course of the past few years.
The same day the PERB published its ruling requiring the school district to cease its unlawful behavior, the Faculty Senate executive board emailed Clovis Unified employees.
Complying with the PERB, the executive board said, “without prejudice and without admission of any wrongdoing,” it would be posting the required notice to employees, with the state agency’s findings and orders, at sites where certificated teachers work.
These employee notices were planned to be posted by Dec. 20, the Faculty Senate email read. Because of ACE’s appeal, Avants said, “the timeline for finalization of the PERB ruling and any required action by the parties involved has now been pushed to sometime in the future pending the outcomes of that appeal.”
By Faculty Senate stating, “without prejudice and without admission of any wrongdoing,” ACE claims the district-supported group “will not show contrition of accountability for its multiple violations of the law.”
ACE claims if Faculty Senate and the school district “cannot be trusted to acknowledge past violations or refrain from future ones, then the existence of the Faculty Senate will continue to deprive CUSD employees of their right to freely choose their employee organization.”
“For these reasons, ACE originally proposed both that the district be required to end its unlawful financial support and that the Faculty Senate be disestablished.”
At the moment, ACE and Clovis Unified await the PERB’s response to ACE’s appeal.
Once the PERB’s decision becomes final – meaning it is no longer subject to appeal – the case is then sent to the agency’s Office of the General Counsel to oversee compliance of the PERB’s remedial orders, said Felix De La Torre, the agency’s General Counsel.
“If a public employer or union refuses to fully comply with PERB’s order,” De La Torre said, “the Board may direct the Office of the General Counsel to file an enforcement action with the superior court.”
Then, failure to comply with the court’s orders can become “contempt of court,” and the court-disobeying entity can be subjected to additional penalties.
“A final outcome of this matter is now pending the appeal process pursued by ACE/CTA given their apparent dissatisfaction with the initial response by PERB,” Avants said.
ACE and Clovis Unified said they have not been provided a time frame for the PERB’s appeal review as of Jan. 5
This story was originally published January 8, 2024, 2:50 PM.
Laura S. Diaz is the engagement reporter for The Fresno Bee’s Education Lab. She previously was The Bee’s COLAB Latino communities reporter. Before working in Fresno, Laura covered social justice, local government and accountability issues for The Stockton Record, and began her career working for CBS News and the Associated Press Elections Center in New York City. She grew up in Mexico and graduated from New York University with a B.S. in media communications and journalism.
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