The Andover Education Association failed to bargain in good faith when it advocated for a warrant article at a 2022 special town meeting instead of negotiating with the school committee, according to a March 4 ruling from the Massachusetts Employment Relations Board.
The article, which was approved 250-231 at the May 17, 2022 special town meeting, would have given educational assistants, food service workers and custodians represented by AEA a one-time, $800 stipend for working through the pandemic. The roughly $300,000 in payments was to have come from federal pandemic relief funds.
The Town and Andover Public Schools have maintained the article was illegal and have not paid the stipends. Former Town Counsel Tom Urbelis issued an opinion in April 2022 that such payments could only be approved by the select board or the school committee. That opinion was backed by the labor department in last month’s ruling.
In its June 21, 2022 complaint with the Department of Labor, the school committee said the union broke state law by bypassing the collective bargaining process when it sent a letter to its members asking them to support passage of the article, as well as letters to the school committee on May 27, after the article was passed. The school committee argued the union was trying to “bargain” with the passed stipend article in the May 27 letters. The union maintains those letters are protected speech under the First Amendment.