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Subcontracting school district?s bus service a mandatory subject of collective bargaining

Subcontracting school district?s bus service a mandatory subject of collective bargaining
Manhasset Educational Support Personnel Association, NYSUT, AFT, AFL-CIO and Manhasset Union Free School District; PERB U-26091 [Adapted from the PERB website]

The Board held that the District violated the Act when it unilaterally subcontracted its bus transportation services to private contractors. PERB also ruled that submitting an Education Law §3813 ?Notice of Claim? to the District was not a condition precedent to perfecting the Association?s claim.

The Board also determined that substitute bus drivers were included in the bargaining unit by virtue of the language of the recognition clause and the parties' treatment of them. Reiterating that the subcontracting of bargaining unit work, for economic or other reasons, constitutes a mandatory subject of negotiations under the Act where there is no curtailment in the level of services, the Board found that the District had improperly subcontracted its bus transportation and maintenance services.

Utilizing a past practice analysis, the Board held that the transportation of public school students to and from the District's schools, along with transportation for athletic and field events and summer school, constituted exclusive bargaining unit work, together with the maintenance, repair and refueling of District buses and other District vehicles. Having defined the unit work, the Board ruled that the District had violated the Act by unilaterally subcontracting exclusive bargaining unit work to a private contractor.

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on November 15, 2008 (boomark / email).