UPDATE: Union Negotiations Cause Rift Among Naugatuck School Employees

To clarify: The tentative agreement discussed below that is titled "off the record proposal" was signed by Sarah Poynton, president of the local AFSCME union, Laurie Jackson, paraprofessional steward, Lucille Giacomazzo, cafeteria steward, Harold Luna, custodian steward and Pat Sampson for ASCME Council 4. 

Wayne McAllister, former Naugatuck school business manager and town controller, Human Resource Director John Lawlor and Attorney Nick Grella signed the tentative agreement for the board.  

Original story: 

The union that represents paraprofessionals, secretaries and cafeteria workers in the Naugatuck public school system is scheduled to enter into a long-term state-mandated arbitration process with the school board on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013, over a contract that most of the union members believe is unfair to an overwhelming majority those in the union. 

The contract had been negotiated between the school board and AFSCME Local 1303-50, which represented more than 200 of the lowest paid school district employees, for the past two-and-a-half years. The employees were without a contract for that time, meaning their salaries were frozen – they had previously taken pay freezes three times in the prior decade. The new contract that will be arbitrated gives up the pension for all incoming hires and gives very little to most of the union employees.

Two of three union stewards who signed the "off the record proposal" with the Board of Education on Jan. 9 tell Naugatuck Patch that their former AFSCME Council 4 representative Pat Sampson and that their former union president Sarah Poynton negotiated for their own personal gain – and for the gain of some of Poynton’s closest allies - and did not fairly negotiate for a majority of the members. As evidence of the membership’s disproval with the contract, the union voted down the pact down 153-10.

The assertion from two of three union stewards who signed what is titled on paper as an “off the record proposal” – Laurie Taf Jackson and Lucille Giacommazzo – is that Poynton and Sampson negotiated for their own personal gain and that Poynton deceived them into signing a bad contract.

Taf Jackson, a burgess and paraprofessional at Cross Street Intermediate School, and Giacommazzo, a cafeteria worker at Cross Street, are on record with Naugatuck Patch alleging that Poynton told them to sign the “off the record proposal” because the school board would never accept it. In the end, the proposal has become a tentative agreement in the board’s eyes and therefore it is being sent to arbitration.

The way the contract was negotiated has caused a huge rift between AFSCME employees within the district, especially those at the Tuttle House Board of Education building. Since the contract was signed, the employees in Naugatuck have told AFSCME they don’t want Sampson representing them any longer, and they have formed a new chapter, Local 1813. They are also looking for new representative.

Poynton, who is now a purchasing agent for the school district making $21.35 an hour, is not representing the union any longer. She previously was a paraprofessional who earned $12.71 an hour.

Poynton and a public relations officer for AFSCME Council 4 are on record with Naugatuck Patch as saying AFSCME and Poynton stood up for all members of the district. They say they negotiated in good faith for all of the union members and that it was very clear that the "off the record proposal" could turn into a tentative agreement that could send the union members to arbitration proceeding. 

The AFSCME union members in the district pay $74.70 a month for union representation, and many of them are now wondering what they are paying for.

The feud came to a head on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013, when an unsigned letter was circulated throughout the school district that describes how the union got to this point.

Many of the allegations made in the two-paged single space letter that is titled “AFSCME Local 1813 arbitration update” and dated Oct. 7, 2013, do not have attribution. Also the letter is unsigned and therefore many of the allegations are not being reported in this Naugatuck Patch article. However, some of the letter explains history, and here is what it states:

“It has been much discussed that the biggest issue with this agreement is giving up the town pension for new hires. Other unions in Naugatuck were given some kind of opportunity to better the retirement for their current members with town pensions. Every other group that gave up their pension for new hires realized better retirement packages and extra incentives. We realize that giving up the pension for new hires creates a culture of haves and have nots, the have nots being the newly hired members who will go forward without the same benefits we currently have, but we understand it is a sign of the times and now is the time to trade with management. Even though it is a step management uses to undermine the unity of a union, we can stay strong and diligently advocate for our current members, and perhaps even secure some advantages for those new members in this negotiation. The key is that we need to keep the pension in order to have something to bargain with! You will be threatened that the health care costs will rise, which they always tell us, in every negotiation, and will tell us that in the next generation after we lose the pension that we traded this time to keep costs down.

“We will need to go back to the table to be given an opportunity to use the issue of the pension for new hires to benefit all of our membership,” the letter states. “All we want is to go back to the table, our desire that was abundantly clear since we took office. Unfortunately, this desire fell on deaf ears, as mentioned, Pat Sampson informed James Healy (president of the new AFSCME chapter representing Naugatuck employees) before the votes were counted that we were going to arbitration, he had made that decision with the Board of Education regardless.”

Dave Heller, Naugatuck school board chairman, said the Naugatuck Board of Ed. is moving forward with the initial arbitration meeting tomorrow.

“The employees are very dedicated, hardworking individuals, and we are very interested in resolving any contractual issues that continue to exist,” he said. “And we look forward to arriving at a new contractual agreement through arbitration.”

Naugatuck’s new Human Resource Director John Lawlor, who oversees both town and school HR functions, confirmed Wednesday with Naugatuck Patch that arbitration proceedings are moving forward.

A note to readers: Naugatuck Patch has notes on-the-record from an AFSCME Council 4 spokesman, Sarah Poynton, Laurie Taf Jackson, Lucille Giacomazzo (former union stewards) and Eileen Coyle, current vice president of the AFSCME union that represents the Naugatuck paraprofessionals, secretaries and cafeteria workers. 

This article is the first in an ongoing series about the AFSCME contract.