March 15, 2019

Dear Mr. Johnson,

We, the undersigned union members, have serious concerns regarding some of the current procedures and
practices currently being used in our union ESPI. In addition, we are concerned about the state of our
contract negotiations. As our assigned NYSUT representative, we request your attention to these matters
and assistance in their resolution to the benefit of all members in the union. These concerns are as
follows:

● Failure of union leadership to represent all members in matters with the District. Numerous
members report contacting the president for assistance and either not receiving a response or
specifically being told she would not assist them. This breaches the union’s duty of fair
representation.
● Union leadership contacting building principals and/or administration regarding questions from
members but not including the member themself.
● Union leadership acting in concert with the district in retaliation against members and groups of
members.
● Union leadership committing acts of retaliation against union members, bullying, committing
slander, and using misinformation and fear tactics to prevent members from engaging in
collective discussion. There is a substantial body of evidence demonstrating these facts.
● Failure to provide a means by which all members can access information regarding the union
(such as a website), for example: information about who the representative is in each building,
officer, committee, and building rep contact information, dates of upcoming executive board
meetings, and updates on a variety of union business. No information is provided to buildings
whose representatives either do not attend meetings or do not hold building meetings, or use other
means, to communicate union business to members in their building.
● The executive board being directed at executive board meetings not to discuss or inform members
of specific topics.
● Complete lack of democratic practices and transparency.
● Failure of the negotiations committee to secure a new tentative agreement, and to inform the
membership about the status of negotiations. The District and the negotiations committee both
agreed in September that negotiations were at impasse, yet impasse was not declared. Union
leadership met with members at the Bus Garage a few months ago to provide an update and some
details about negotiations, but has not done so for any other building. In December, we were told
a tentative agreement had been reached except for a few minor language adjustments and that we
would be voting after the New Year break. Except for these cases, there has been no information
about negotiations since October. Taylor Law defines impasse as a tentative agreement not being
reached before 120 days prior to the end of the fiscal year.
● Failure of the union officers to establish an accessible and impartial grievance process; the current
procedure is that members are only allowed to contact the president individually regarding
grievances and the president decides whether or not to represent that member in matters with the
district (which as noted above is failure to represent).
 ● The monthly executive board meetings have now been unilaterally designated as informational
meetings only, that is with no questions, discussion, or voting on policies and procedures by the
executive board (ie. the president making unilateral decisions with no representation of
members), and failure of union leadership to provide collective discussion opportunities to the
executive board and membership at other times. This violates labor law. The president also
stated the new meeting format was done on your recommendation.
● Complete lack of information regarding the upcoming election for officers, building
representatives, and NYSUT delegates and alternates- such as due date for submitting
nominations, who is on the nominating committee, contact information for the nominating
committee, process for becoming a candidate, and the criteria the committee will use for selecting
candidates. There is also no indication that there will be an opportunity for candidates to make
presentations to members at a meeting or otherwise campaign (inform members of their
background, why they want to run, and what they would seek to achieve if elected).
● Consistent failure of union leadership to address collective concerns of members, answer
questions satisfactorily, and requests for the use of democratic processes.
● Union leadership only allowing members to discuss concerns with the president one-to-one,
providing no opportunity for collective discussion or bringing concerns and questions to the
president as a group.
● Lack of transparency regarding the union budget. Budgets are not presented for discussion or
voting by the members. There is no apparent financial oversight, or accountability.
● Repeated violations of our union by-laws over the last three years including: failure to have June
meetings, improper election procedure, not allowing the executive board to vote on policies and
procedures, NYSUT delegates being appointed rather than elected, failure of the negotiations
committee to make regular reports to the executive board, failure to notify entire membership of
executive board meetings at least ten days prior, lack of a budget report being made at each
executive board meeting, and failure to establish a legislative and finance committee (or if they
do exist, for those committees to report to the executive board. In addition, the names of
committee chairpersons are not widely known to members and members are not informed when
the chairpersons terms expire).

We believe that we are following the proper procedure by contacting you and requesting your assistance
with these matters. If this is not the case, please let us know and we will bring these issues to your
superior. Given the time sensitivity of the upcoming election, we request a meeting prior to March 27.
Please respond by March 20. We intend to bring the rest of our membership into this discussion and hope
to have a satisfactory resolution to share with them. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Helen English
Linda Bessemer
Hobit Lafaye
Aimee Bacon
Mimi Goldman
Suzanne Porter
Here is the response from the LRS:
 
Wed, Mar 20, 9:14 PM   
(2 days ago) 

Good evening,

Thank you for reaching out to the Elmira Regional Office. I will respond directly to you since you authored
the original email and I don't send correspondences to unknown email addresses.

Under the NYSUT governance structure, each NYSUT local including the Ithaca ESP, are autonomous in
their daily operations. As such, NYSUT does not control the daily operations of a local. NYSUT serves in
an advisory role to assist a local manage its affairs and provide technical and legal advice to the local in
bargaining and enforcing the terms and conditions of employment with the district.

I have reviewed the "concerns" set forth in your email. Please identify which members of the undersigned
group are affected by the bullets listed below, and I can address the "concern" with the union leadership
and/or executive board. For example, bullet number one states , "Failure of union leadership to represent
all members in matters with the District​. ​Numerous members report contacting the president for
assistance and either not receiving a response or specifically being told she would not assist them."
Which one of the undersigned members were denied representation, when did this occur and was the
issue previously addressed with a NYSUT LRS' or the NYSUT Regional Staff Director?

Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to speak to both former LRS' assigned to the Ithaca ESP prior to
me (Chris Corlette and Tim O'Brien) concerning these matters, and I now have some of the history behind
the issues raised in your email. A review of the records given to me has revealed that no Ithaca ESP
member has contacted either the Vestal or Elmira Regional Offices asserting that the Ithaca ESP has
failed to meet its Duty of Representation under the Taylor Law. There was at least one Ithaca ESP
member who did have an issue with the leadership style and that issue was immediately addressed by
the LRS and Regional Staff Director at the time. Also, no member has ever filed a compliant at PERB
about a breach of the Duty of Representation. Since each NYSUT local is autonomous, and the NYSUT
LRS serves in an advisory role to the union, I will discuss the concerns raised in your email with the union
leadership.
Lastly, I can categorically state that the bullet which states inter alia, "The District and the negotiations
committee both agreed in September that negotiations were at impasse, yet impasse was not declared."
is factually incorrect.​ ​The parties have continued to negotiate in good faith as required by the Taylor Law
and neither party has or ever declared impasse. In addition, I know that you personally received
notification about the status of negotiations as I wrote the response last month that Carla sent to you. .
There has been no change in the status of negotiations as the parties continue with the negotiations
process. As you were informed last month, when the parties reach a tentative agreement, the
membership will be notified along with the process that will be used for ratification.

Thanks again for reaching out to the Elmira Regional Office for assistance, and I will discuss your
concerns with the Ithaca ESP President and Executive Board at the appropriate time.

In solidarity- Mike

Michael H. Johnson

Labor Relations Specialist

New York State United Teachers

Southern Tier Regional Office-Elmira

Suite 200

100 West Church Street

Elmira, NY 14901-2720

1-800-698-6238

mjohnson@nysutmail.org