School labor hearing continues

The legal team representing the Rio Rancho Public Schools opened its case against the district’s labor union Monday afternoon as the union’s final witness was not available due to illness.

Both sides finished their examination of union president Peggy Stielow at 2:30 p.m., then broke briefly before former human resources department employee Sue Carley was called to testify. Carley was a part of the labor negotiation team before taking a position as assistant principal at Rio Rancho Mid-High.

The union had wanted to call Randy Evans, the union’s executive director of finance, as its final witness. But Evans went home ill on Friday afternoon and did not return to work on Monday.

Union counsel Andy Lotrich agreed on Friday to call Evans out of order in order to expidite the case, which opened with 1½ days of settlement talks last Tuesday. When the two sides could not come to agreement, public testimony opened Wednesday afternoon.

The two sides have traded complaints of unfair labor practices against each other in several areas, and the Rio Rancho Labor Board ruled on Dec. 19 that a hearing officer take testimony and issue a ruling on the complaints.

Carley’s testimony was mostly about the opening session on May 15, when the two sides disputed “ground rules,” many of which had been used in previous years but the union wanted to change for the 2008-09 negotiations.

Disagreement over those ground rules was the first of many disagreements between the two sides that have been brought out in the hearings, including stipends, pay for teaching assistants performing substitute duties, meeting times and dates, notes taken by different parties and the chronological order of events. The sides also have disputed whether written, verbal or electronic formats were used to transmit proposals and counter-proposals, and whether the union’s refusal to pay 25 cents per page for copies was an appropriate effort by the district to respond to requests for information.

The animosity that had been below the surface for most of the hearing surfaced on at least two occasions on Monday. About an hour into the hearing, Lotrich accused the labor negotiation team of attorney Dina Holcomb and district representatives Sue Passell and Shirley Ogle of making “disparaging comments” in sidebar conversations while Stielow was testifying. Holcomb denied the specific allegations, telling hearing officer Kathleen McCorkell the conversations were part of permitted exchange with her co-counsel.

Later, Stielow was sharply rebuked by Holcomb for seeming to avoid her questions and expressing disgust through body language and barely audible sighs when material was re-examined. And Lotrich and Carley had a few sharp exchanges during her testimony.

Tomorrow is the last day scheduled for the hearing. McCorkell said during a mid-afternoon break that additional time had not be scheduled.