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Plan For School Workers To Man Storm Shelters Upheld

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By RONNIE BLAIR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 17, 2007

LAND O' LAKES - A state hearing officer has ruled in favor of the Pasco County School District in a dispute over whether the district can require employees to work at hurricane shelters.

The hearing officer, Julie R. Steinmeyer, recommended that the Public Employees Relations Commission dismiss an unfair labor practice charge filed by United School Employees of Pasco.

In arguing its case, the school district maintained that it was required by state law to operate hurricane shelters and provide the personnel for doing so.

"I'm pleased the PERC hearing is over and they supported our view on this and have shown it is our legal obligation," Superintendent Heather Fiorentino said Friday.

Lynne Webb, president of the union, could not be reached for comment.

The union and the school district have been at odds over the shelter issue since Fiorentino wrote a memorandum in May that union officials said implied employees should be on call for hurricane duty during the summer break.

In her memo, dated May 24, Fiorentino said the district would attempt to staff shelters with volunteers, who are paid, but she added a caveat.

"If necessary, the remaining slots will be filled by calling in needed employees," she wrote.

Fiorentino said state law requires the school district to provide shelters and to staff them. She said her memo was an effort to communicate that responsibility to employees.

She said the memo also was made necessary because the Legislature moved back the start of school in August, which means schools could be out of session when a hurricane forms.

The district told the union it was willing to negotiate the impact the hurricane-shelter requirement might have. The union, though, maintained that the district first needed to negotiate whether it could require hurricane duty before it negotiated the impact of such a requirement.

Steinmeyer disagreed, citing a 1979 case in which the city of Winter Haven replaced a voluntary system for calling employees in emergencies to a mandatory system.

The Public Employee Relations Commission determined in that case the decision to change the call-back system was a management right. The only bargaining necessary was on the decision's impact on "terms and conditions of employment."

Steinmeyer noted in the Pasco case the school district wasn't even converting to a mandatory system, but "rather is stating what it will do if the volunteers are insufficient."

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218 or rblair@tampatrib.com.

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