An administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board found that a charter school operator in Ohio, with the help of a “union avoidance” firm based in Orlando, unlawfully threatened school staff who sought to unionize with the Ohio Federation of Teachers last year.
School staff at the KIPP Columbus campus’ four K-12 schools — including teachers, intervention specialists, social workers, teaching fellows and student coordinators — filed a petition with the federal labor board for a union election in November 2022, and voted to unionize last May.
We did it!
— KIPP Columbus ACTS (@KIPPcbusACTS) May 5, 2023
Despite months of unionbusting (16 anti-union emails to staff in the last 3 weeks!) we stood together as educators to build our union & address high turnover, large class sizes & unsustainable coverage practices.
Our students deserve the best!https://t.co/DwflXWr1qt
In the months leading up to the vote, however, the union — the KIPP Columbus Alliance for Charter Teachers and Staff — filed charges against the school, alleging unlawful behavior by the school in relation to their staff’s protected right to organize.
Administrative law judge Christal J. Key, in a decision released last week, found that, with backup from the Orlando-based Labor Pros, the charter school operator did indeed violate their employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act by unlawfully threatening pay freezes during years of contract negotiations if staff voted to unionize.
School officials and third-party consultants hired through the Labor Pros also illegally threatened to withhold stipends previously agreed upon for intervention specialists at the school who provide specially designed instruction and case management to students with mental and physical disabilities.
“All money has been stopped,” Labor Pros consultant Vanessa Ramsey reportedly told one specialist during a December 2022 meeting with the school’s superintendent, according to personal testimony from the specialist. “All the stipends and things have been stopped because the union process has started.”
The schools’ superintendent, Ciji Pittman, had been working with intervention specialists for months alongside other school officials to come to an agreement on these stipends. The stipends were specifically intended as an incentive for overworked specialists who have student caseloads that are above the state's limit for professionals in their role.
According to personal testimony from the specialist, shared with the NLRB officials, both Ramsey and Pittman confirmed that, because of the decision by staff to unionize, the stipends were no longer in play.
“You're not getting that compensation,” Pittman reportedly told the specialist. “The union stuff started, and so you don't — you don't get that anymore.”
Separately, the union also alleged that the school unlawfully fired a pregnant performing arts teacher for her union activity. This allegation, however, was dismissed by the judge for lack of sufficient evidence.
As a result of their findings, Key has ordered the charter school, KIPP Columbus, to cease and desist from threatening the rescission of benefits and from threatening pay freezes, and has ordered the school to make the intervention specialists whole, “with interest,” for the caseload stipend.
The union sees the ruling, all in all, as a win.
“This ruling further confirms what we’ve reported in the past, that during our organizing campaign, KIPP’s management engaged in illegal acts of intimidation and retaliation,” the bargaining committee for the union told Orlando Weekly in a statement.
“We were not deterred by their actions because we, the workers, have the final say over whether or not we form our union.”
“We were not deterred by their actions because we, the workers, have the final say over whether or not we form our union.”
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Personal testimony provided by the Labor Pros consultants and school staff at Ohio charter campus reveals that consultants held group and one-on-one meetings with employees on their union rights, with Ramsey doing “most of the speaking,” the judge wrote.
Records show that Pittman, the superintendent and KIPP Columbus's high school principal emailed employees, mandating they attend such meetings conducted by the Labor Pros consultants.
Both consultants hired through the Labor Pros “provided dishonest testimony about the purpose of the meetings,” according to the NLRB judge. Ramsey, for instance, claimed she wasn’t biased one way or another about whether staff voted to unionize.
The second consultant, Jermaine Webb, testified his job “was to simply provide employees information” and that they “didn’t care if employees supported the Union.”
During such meetings, Ramsey told school staff that if they voted to unionize, contract negotiations could take years, and in that time, staff’s pay would be frozen. During a presentation, she showed workers a slide that read, “During negotiations, no matter how long they take, employees stay at ‘Status Quo.’”
Such "futility statements," as they’re known, are commonly used by employers, their lawyers and union-busting firms to make workers feel that unionizing won’t actually help them, and that they may as well just save themselves the time and abandon the effort.
This is what allegedly occurred during a recent union drive in Davenport, Florida, where delivery drivers for ReadyRefresh, a bottled water brand, sought to unionize with the Teamsters.
A mandatory disclosure report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management Standards shows that KIPP Columbus hired two Labor Pros consultants in December 2022 to provide “third party education and services” to school staff in relation to their organizing rights.
Mind you, this was about a month after the staff had filed a petition to unionize, with 78% of staff having signed authorization cards in support of the effort — well above the 30% minimum that's required.
Altogether, records show the school spent nearly $100,000 over the next couple of months on their campaign to convince school staff not to unionize.
An agreement filed with the labor department by Labor Pros chief executive and founder Nekeya Nunn, based in Orlando, shows the school, through their legal counsel, agreed to pay the Labor Pros a $10,000 retainer fee for their services and hourly rates of $385 per hour for consultants, and $450 per hour for Nunn, who describes herself on her firm's website as someone who “believes in keeping companies union-free.”
On top of that, the agreement also allowed for meal stipends, transportation and lodging expenses to be covered by the employer.
This kind of pay isn't unusually high. In fact, it’s pretty standard these days for the Labor Pros and other consultants who work within the lucrative union-busting industry, including other union busters based in Florida (or “persuaders,” as they’re formally known) who have been hired over the years by the likes of Amazon, Amy’s Kitchen, Pfizer, Lowes and Mercedes-Benz.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, U.S. employers spend more than $400 million per year on union avoidance persuaders like the Labor Pros, which lists its address in reports to the government as either a building in downtown Orlando near Lake Eola or the UPS office on East Central Boulevard.
Such consultants and firms are required by law to file financial disclosure reports with the Department of Labor's Office of Labor Management Standards, disclosing agreements they enter into with employers to “educate” employees concerning their organizing or collective bargaining rights.
However, as Orlando Weekly previously reported, the Labor Pros have a history of filing their reports late or incorrectly — and have at times been one of the “most egregious” offenders in the industry, according to the nonprofit watchdog LaborLab.
In fact, the report filed by Nunn disclosing her firm’s work for KIPP Columbus lists two persuaders whose names do not match those referenced in Key’s decision.
According to Key, the two Labor Pros persuaders hired through the Ohio schools’ legal counsel were Vanessa Ramsey and Jermaine Webb. Both provided testimony to the federal labor board during their investigation into the unfair labor practice complaints.
Nunn, however, lists the consultants hired for the KIPP Columbus campaign as Vanessa Arrington, based in Chicago, and Abram Moore, based in Phoenix. Orlando Weekly was unable to verify the identities of, or find contact information for, either of the two.
Under the Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act, filers are required to report the full names of all individuals identified in these forms — and must use their real names.
“Initials and coded names are not acceptable,” according to the Office of Labor Management Standards, which fields these forms.
A spokesperson for the OLMS told Orlando Weekly earlier this year that the OLMS has civil enforcement authority of these requirements, and (although this never really happens) can also pursue criminal penalties for certain willful violations of reporting requirements, including “false entries” in reports.
Orlando Weekly reached out to the Labor Pros and Nunn for comment on the administrative law judge’s decision — and the mismatched names — but did not hear back ahead of publication.
According to the Ohio-based union, bargaining sessions with school leadership to hammer out a contract haven’t been going well, although based on their conduct during their initial organizing drive, they’re not surprised.
“Over the past year, KIPP management has delayed, obstructed, and drawn out bargaining because they have no incentive to actually reach a deal with us,” the union’s bargaining committee told Orlando Weekly in a statement. “While these bargaining tactics are legal, they go hand-in-hand with KIPP’s illegal anti-union actions. We are looking forward to making progress at our next bargaining date.”
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