School district support staff may vote again between unions

Thousands of Clark County School District bus drivers, custodians and support staff may vote — for the fourth time — between two labor unions vying for power as their bargaining agent.

In December, following a change in state rules that govern union representation contests, Local Teamsters 14 won a landslide victory in a runoff election to oust the Education Support Employees Association, or ESEA. The unions have been battling for control for nearly 15 years.

Election rules previously required a so-called supermajority in which one union seeking control needed 50 percent plus 1 of all union members to vote in its favor. But the Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board, or EMRB, a three-person state entity overseeing public employers and their unions, voted last year to change the 13-year-old policy to require only a simple majority of ballots cast in an election.

That allowed the Teamsters, after securing 81 percent of 5,339 ballots, to claim victory in the December election.

The ESEA headed to court to challenge the results. And, on Wednesday, Clark County District Judge Kenneth Cory remanded the case back to the EMRB after concluding that the Nevada Supreme Court supported the original supermajority rule.

“This is not a case where I feel that it is the court’s best function to step out and write some compelling opinion trying to persuade the Supreme Court that they were wrong,” Cory said.

In February, Cory temporarily blocked the Teamsters from taking control as the support staff’s bargaining agent, noting that the ESEA demonstrated that a transition of power would cause “irreparable harm.”

Larry Griffith, the Teamsters’ secretary-treasurer, expressed his frustration with Wednesday’s ruling.

“We thought that the judge’s decision would be totally different,” he said.

“I believe he got cold feet and did not want to make a decision because it would head to the Supreme Court,” Griffith added. “He didn’t want to be overruled, and that’s probably what (the justices) would do.”

The Teamsters now plan to attend the EMRB’s next meeting May 10 and likely will support Commissioner Bruce Snyder’s recommendation.

Snyder said he’s not certain what he will recommend. But he stressed that, in line with Cory’s decision, any new election must yield a supermajority for the Teamsters to unseat the ESEA.

“There’s nothing to prevent another election,” Snyder said. “We would have to hold the election differently to ensure that more people vote. I’m not 100 percent sure what that would look like.”

The ESEA, meanwhile, recently reached an impasse with district negotiators and soon may schedule arbitration hearings to resolve a contract dispute.

Support staff workers, mostly in support of the Teamsters, have packed Clark County School Board meetings in recent weeks to demand better pay and benefits.

ESEA Executive Director Guillermo Vasquez would not disclose the terms of a contract proposal made to the district but applauded the court’s decision.

“We’re ecstatic to be right back where we’ve always been, and that’s leading the fight to make sure school support personnel have dignity and respect at the workplace,” Vasquez said.

Contact Neal Morton at nmorton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @nealtmorton