The union representing teachers in Pierce County’s third-largest school district filed a complaint with the state Public Employment Relations Commission on Thursday, alleging the Bethel School District publicized misleading figures about the cost of the union’s collective bargaining proposals.
The Bethel Education Association also said the district posted incomplete information about the union’s proposals on the district’s Web site.
The Spanaway-based district denied the accusations in a statement Thursday evening.
The two sides have been negotiating for months over a new collective bargaining agreement. The current deal, which was reached at the end of a three-day strike in 2007, expires Aug. 31. The district sent notices to 220 educators in April, notifying them they could face layoffs or slashed hours. Most have since been rehired.
The district created a Web page – http://negotiations.bethelsd.org – to post news about the bargaining process. On it are links to each side’s proposals and responses.
This is where the union said it found errors, including a multimillion-dollar overestimation of what the union proposal would cost taxpayers.
A union statement says the district “waited weeks before posting the corrected figures on the district Web site. When they did post it they never included a retraction of their previous error.”
In addition, “Bethel administrators are posting portions of the BEA’s proposals on the district Web site, but have censored major sections explaining the union’s rationale.”
A written statement from the district countered that it is careful to make sure the Web site has no emotional language or opinion from either side. It also said any financial miscalculations originated in bargaining sessions and were corrected as soon as possible.
“We find it unfortunate that the BEA would attack the public’s right to know rather than to focus its attention on completing negotiations for a contract to serve their 1,000 members and 18,000 students in our community,” the district statement said.
Scott Fontaine and Matt Misterek, The News Tribune
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