OEA’s Interim President Follows CTA Advice to Override OEA’s Bylaws and Democratically Elected Policy-Making Body

UPDATE: On April 10, 2023, OEA Rep Council approved a resolution that “OEA Rep Council protests the advice of CTA and denounces the action of the OEA interim president to override the following mandate, approved unanimously by OEA’s democratically elected policy-making body, Representative Council: that OEA will retain attorney Richard Tan by March 20, 2023, to pursue the Substitute Teacher Arbitration Award, beginning with research of relevant facts and an assessment and recommendation on pursuing litigation, a step that imposes no obligation on OEA to proceed further and no legal risk to OEA.”Although Rep Council’s approval of this resolution will not force the OEA president to comply with OEA’s democratic process under the Bylaws, it confirms for the record that the majority of OEA site representatives believe that something is seriously wrong here. This move is extremely significant and is the first time in at least 33 years (or ever) that Rep Council has “denounced” an OEA president’s action. The Rank and File Roundup will follow up with an article soon addressing the history of OEA and CTA bureaucrats’ betrayal of union members for nearly three years in the process that led to this resolution. Three main elements of that betrayal were: 1. the collaborative relationship between OEA and OUSD officials, 2. the failure of OEA and CTA officials to fight for all union members, especially its most marginalized workers, and 3. the ongoing violation of democratic process, a necessity for bureaucrats in any union who collaborate with the employer at the expense of the rank and file.

We regret to inform OEA members that our union’s (interim) president recently violated OEA Bylaws by overriding a policy unanimously approved by our policy-making body, Representative Council.  His explanation was that “CTA advised” that he ignore Rep Council’s mandate. As we move to a critical juncture in our fight with OUSD for a fair contract, this move raises disturbing questions about whether OEA members and their elected policy-making body or CTA bureaucrats have the power to determine our union’s actions. 

Last month Rep Council passed by unanimous consent a motion to implement a decision that it had already approved nearly a year earlier, “to retain attorney Richard Tan to represent OEA members in legal action to require OUSD to implement the arbitration award won by substitute teachers for the district’s violation of the Fall 2020 MOU on Distance Learning. . .”  Rep Council’s second mandate for this action included a deadline this time, March 20, because its previous vote had been ignored by the OEA president. 

If hired, Mr. Tan’s first task would be to investigate the facts leading to the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in October 2021 that withdrew from the arbitration award that OEA had won in August 2021. The award required OUSD to issue back pay to 93 substitute teachers denied employment in 2020-21 due to the District’s violation of the Fall 2020 Distance Learning MOU. (Rank-and-file OEA members did all the work to win this arbitration award, after CTA staff  refused to do it.) The award would pay each eligible substitute teacher up to $9700. (Even the District’s records and low-ball claim indicate that the award is worth at least $3400-3600 per substitute.) The subsequent MOU to withdraw from that award was signed by the OEA president, despite the unanimous opposition of the Substitute Caucus. It issued $1200 to some eligible substitutes, $600 to others, and nothing to some. 

Mr. Tan has made clear to OEA that the the president’s signing of an MOU dumping the arbitration award possibly wrecked the union’s chances to retrieve that back pay for substitutes —despite Rep Council’s rejection of that agreement—but he needs to research the facts of the case to evaluate the merits of legal action. After CTA Legal refused last year to even respond to Rep Council’s request that it make that assessment, Reps voted twice to retain Mr. Tan to do that work. After the second Rep Council mandate to hire Mr. Tan last month, he and arbitration co-advocate Craig Gordon met with OEA Interim President Ismael Armendariz and CTA Staff/Executive Director John Green. Mr. Tan answered all questions asked of him, most of which were identical to those asked over the past year by Past-President Keith Brown. Mr. Tan reiterated that, once retained, his first task would be to research all communications from OEA and OUSD leading to the signing of the MOU withdrawing from the award and following Rep Council’s overwhelming rejection of that MOU two weeks later. Doing that research would bring zero legal risk to OEA or our members. OEA leaders would decide whether to move forward based on that research and advice. 

On March 22, two days after Rep Council’s deadline to sign the retainer, Interim President Armendariz called Mr. Tan and said that he will not implement Rep Council’s decision to retain him, because CTA has advised against it. Mr. Tan declined Mr. Armendariz’s offer to pay him for the many uncompensated hours he had already devoted to this work over the past year.

To summarize, CTA (which receives 55% of OEA members’ dues, and unlike OEA, has no legal duty to represent members):

1.     refused to file for arbitration in January 2021, despite a unanimous vote to do so by the Substitute Caucus

2.     then refused to handle the arbitration preparation, hearing advocacy and brief writing

3.    then advised OEA to dump the arbitration award that rank-and-file OEA members had won despite CTA’s refusal to support it, over the unanimous objection by the Substitute Caucus

4.     then ignored Rep Council’s rejection of the MOU withdrawing from the award and Rep Council’s request for CTA Legal support to pursue the award 

5.     And now has advised the interim OEA president to violate OEA Bylaws by overriding Rep Council’s decision to retain an independent attorney to do the research and honest assessment that CTA Legal had refused to do regarding an arbitration award that it refused to pursue from the beginning. 

As OEA enters a critical period of decision-making about how to fight for a fair contract, this development forces us to ask: When OEA presidents don’t like mandates  by our union’s policy-making body to confront the District and fight for members, can they just refuse to implement them? (OEA Bylaws don’t give the president veto power.) Who determines OEA’s actions— rank-and-file members and their elected representatives or CTA bureaucrats?