Teachers target mayor to vent anger

For the first time in decades, the Warwick Teachers Union targeted City Hall and the mayor to demonstrate their frustration in failing to reach a contract and what they consider the department’s waste of money pursuing arbitration and mediation.

But as an estimated 250 teachers, who were joined by parents and kids, paraded on Post Road in plain view of the mayor’s office, Mayor Scott Avedisian was not on the premise or to be seen.

That had Norwood School parent Carol Carr angry. Carr said she attempted to talk with Avedisian, however, she said she never received a follow-up call. (Her open letter to the mayor appears in today’s paper.)

“Where are you? You’re not there. I haven’t seen him once,” she said of Avedisian.

Billed as an “information picket” by the union, the rally was orderly and confined to the sidewalk in front of City Hall. There was a heavy presence of police, who had placed cones in the breakdown lane and were prepared to stop traffic at the crosswalks. A video camera manned by a city employee was at the ready from a second-floor office in the event there was any disruption; There wasn’t.

Col. Stephen McCartney said the picketing raised safety concerns as construction on the Apponaug Circulator was taking place at the Four Corners and that section of Post Road not far from City Hall.

While the mayor wasn’t present, his office issued a statement as picketers circulated, chanted and cheered when truckers leaned on their horns. In his statement, the mayor who joined mediation talks earlier this year said the contract dispute “has been both challenging and emotional for all those involved.” Avedisian said he would continue to work with the parties to reach an agreement.

The mayor also said, “I find the timing of this protest odd given that just yesterday we settled on the next date for mediation and are five to six weeks from the arbitration decision.”

While the union picketed City Hall in an apparent effort to send a message to Avedisian, he was not named in a press release announcing the demonstration. Union President Darlene Netcoh acknowledged Avedisian’s presence in mediation, but she did not say what measures she thought he should take.

One of the signs carried by teachers had his photograph and blamed Avedisian.

The message to the school administration, however, was loud and clear.

Netcoh said more than $135,000 has been spent on interest arbitration, plus additional sums in legal fees on mediation and court actions.

“Instead of negotiating with the WTU, Thornton and the WSC have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money to pursue interest arbitration, to take issues to the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), and to file frivolous court actions,” reads the release.

Further, Netcoh notes that the union has been without a contract since August of 2015. She also accused Superintendent Philip Thornton of allowing “dangerous conditions, such as non-functioning fire alarms in elementary schools and raw sewage in classrooms at a junior high school, to exist in the schools and belatedly and only after a parent broke the news communicated about the fire alarms with the parents and teachers.”

Last year, the union rejected a contract proposal that would have given teachers raises of 3 percent in each year of a three-year contract on the basis that the committee would have eliminated class weighting, which is linked to students with individual education programs (IEPs) that would have resulted in larger classes and reduced individual instruction.

The 3 percent offer apparently is still on the table, although it would not be applied retroactively to August 2015. Meanwhile, the committee has made gains in the courts. Superior Court Justice Bennett Gallo struck down a State Labor Relations Board finding that the committee committed an unfair labor practice when it refused to abide by the terms of the expired contract. The union argued terms of the former contract remained in place until a new agreement was reached when the committee laid off more than the 20-teacher limit in response to the consolidation of secondary schools.

On Friday, the Superior Court denied the union’s request for a stay of Gallo’s order, and on April 21 the Supreme Court is scheduled to consider whether to hear the case.

Superintendent Philip Thornton said Wednesday he expects the results of interest arbitration to be made public in late May or early June.