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Ashland classified union pickets district Several members of Oregon School Employees Association picket Monday in front of the Ashland School District office. Photo by Larry Stauth Jr. Tuesday Nov 15, 2016 at 9:34 AM Nov 15, 2016 at 4:22 PM By Joe Zavala for the Mail Tribune About 10 classified employees with the Ashland School District stood in the pouring rain across the street from the district office on Siskiyou Boulevard while holding signs proclaiming “Classified expect respect” and “With us, not to us” Monday night, three days before a state mediator was scheduled to arrive in town to help resolve a dispute between the district and the Oregon School Employees Association bargaining team. Negotiations hit a snag over the OSEA’s desire to include transportation work rules in the contract, a request that Ashland’s OSEA field representative Ahrien Johnson said is consistent with previous contracts and without which the district would be granted authority to make and approve all future changes without employee approval. The transportation department’s work rules are about six pages long and cover everything from check-in, vehicle safety and the district’s route bidding procedure to absences/subbing, policies regarding alcohol and controlled substances and trip cancellations. “The work rules have always been a part of the contract,” said Johnson, who was picketing alongside the classified employees Monday. “The documentation shows you that the work rules are an addendum to the collective bargaining agreement and have always been. Our records go back to 1992. … It’s not a handbook at all. It’s an addendum to the collective bargaining agreement entitled, 'Transportation Work Rules.’ I sat at the bargaining table last June and negotiated that we would reopen the transportation work rules this year during negotiations, so how could they not be a proper agreement if we all agreed to reopen them this year?” Ashland Interim Superintendent Suzanne Cusick said those who believe the transportation work rules have always been a part of the CBA are wrong. “That is their misconception,” Cusick said. “Every year they’ve been included as what’s called a reopener because each side — the district or the union — can in addition to salary request bargaining or discussion on one other item, and traditionally in this district for many years the discussion has always been about transportation work rules. "Where the union is mistaken is they believe it was accepted as an addendum at some point, but it never was. There are no board minutes. We have other addendums, such as salaries that are added to the end of a contract, but these (work rules) have never been approved. They have members of their own union that are saying, ‘No, they have never been approved.’ But we have a group here that believes they have, so that’s our point of disagreement." An OSEA bargaining update dated Sept. 23 and signed by the Ashland Chapter 42 bargaining team, which includes bus driver and chapter President Tammy Burnett, lead custodian Shawn Grimmesey, activities coordinator James Johnson and Ahrien Johnson, attempted to lay it out for employees in a section titled, “Why are the transportation work rules so important?” According to the document, transportation workers do not have the same regular hours and work conditions as most other classified employees and a good portion of their income depends on trips. “Transportation workers are required to work long driving hours, overnight field trips, work weekends, work with special needs children, bid for their routes, paid meals, training and supplemental assignments, etc.,” it read. “These facts make it very important for a classified employee to have the added layer of protection from transportation work rules being preserved in the contract.” Both sides agree that the disagreement regarding the transportation work rules remains the only issue standing between the two sides. The district and the union representatives agreed in June on a 2.5 percent cost-of-living salary increase for the 2016-17 school year and a 2.25 percent increase for 2017-18. The two sides, along with the mediator, will meet at the district office at 9 a.m. Thursday. “I never would have thought we’d be at mediation over something like this,” Johnson said. “You’d have thought that once we settled on the compensation issue we would have been done, but they drew a line in the sand over something so small and minute … hoping to push us to agree so that we could ratify before the end of the school year.” Cusick said including the work rules in the contract would be a mistake. “Let’s be really clear, they never have been in (the contract),” she said, “and as soon as something goes into a contract it becomes very inflexible for both sides. It would also make it really difficult for them because to change anything in the collective bargaining agreement you have to go back to the bargaining table, and that takes a long time. So we do not want them in there.” Johnson said that even if a deal can’t be hammered out Thursday, the chance of a strike is “unlikely.” Cusick is confident the dispute will be resolved by Friday. “I think so,” she said. “These are great people. We respect and value them, and I just hope that with a third-party mediator, we’ll be able to work through this.” — Joe Zavala is a reporter for the Ashland Daily Tidings. Reach him at 541-821-0829 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Zavala99.