Teamsters missed one in campaign

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, April 21, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.

The Teamsters union has spent $500,000 over nearly five years to woo every support employee in the Clark County School District.

Well, almost everyone.

"I'm a bit disappointed," said Doug McCain, president of the Education Support Employees Association, which is battling the Teamsters for the right to represent 10,000 of the district's employees. "I'm a dues-paying member, and I haven't received one single letter, nothing."

Ballots were mailed Monday to the district's support employees, offering them a choice of continuing with ESEA, switching to Teamsters Local 14 or abandoning union representation altogether. Support employees include custodians, maintenance staff, bus drivers, food-service workers and office personnel.

McCain has been a member of ESEA since its inception more than 30 years ago. He began his career in Clark County as a bus driver in August 1965, earning $2.49 per hour.

He was unsure whether his exclusion from the mailers was an oversight or whether the Teamsters had decided to save the cost of a stamp and remove him from their mailing list.

Jim Wright, a consultant working with Teamsters Local 14, said the contact list of district support employees was provided by the Nevada Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board, which is overseeing the election.

"We've taken nobody off," Wright said Thursday. "We've had maybe four requests from people asking not to be on the list."

In fliers, mailers and posters, the Teamsters claim resources and expertise that far outstrip ESEA.

But Dane Watson, executive director of ESEA, noted that his organization is an affiliate of the Nevada State Education Association and the National Education Association, as is Clark County's teachers union.

ESEA negotiated a four-year contract last summer that included a 2.25 percent pay increase for 2005 followed by another 4 percent this year. The Clark County School Board also approved allocating $6 million to raise salaries for support employees at the bottom of the pay scale.

"We're a family," Watson said. "We know we're each an important part of the education of students and it's integral to be part of the same team."

In 2002, the Teamsters said it had signature cards showing a majority of support employees were in favor of a switch in representation. At the same time, ESEA demonstrated more than half of the district's support employees were paying dues to the association.

To settle the dispute, the Employee-Management Relations Board ordered an election. In December 2005, after three years of legal battles, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld the board's ruling. The court also upheld that a winning ballot would require 50 percent plus one of all eligible votes.

Ballots must be returned to the Employee-Management Relations Board by May 8.