NLRB ruling goes against R.I. Head Start workers
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The regional director of the National Labor Relations Board has rebuffed unionized Head Start workers who had filed an unfair labor practice charge against the program management, Children’s Friend & Service, saying there is no evidence the agency tried to thwart collective bargaining. Chas Walker, organizer for District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, said the group will appeal to the national office of the NLRB to overturn the decision of Regional Director Rosemary Pye. Early in 2009, Children’s Friend was awarded a $7-million annual contract to run Head Start for about 1,100 pre-school children in Providence and the Blackstone Valley, replacing a previous contractor which lost federal funding in 2007 because of poor management. Almost all the 200 Head Start employees had continued working for a Denver-based provider hired by the federal Department of Health and Human Services to provide interim management until a new local agency could be selected to run the program. Children’s Friend, which took over Head Start in June 2009, made it clear that all employees would have to re-apply for their jobs to continue working. The union maintains that after Children’s Friend discovered workers had unionized, it reneged on promises it made in its Head Start application to rehire all existing qualified employees and work with them to meet higher educational goals required by the federal government in 2011 and 2013. The NLRB regional director said that “there was no evidence that [Children’s Friend] had purposely refused to hire employees of a predecessor employer in order to avoid its obligation to bargain with the union.” “Rather, it appeared from the evidence that in narrowing its field of qualified candidates from 180 to 168, union membership or active participation was not considered a factor,” Pye, the regional director, said in a letter dated Jan. 22. Pye also said there was insufficient evidence to support the union’s allegations that Children’s Friend engaged in an anti-union campaign to “interfere with, restrain and coerce employees in their exercise of protected concerted activities.” Walker, meanwhile, said the details of the appeal have not yet been formulated. |
