SF teachers union files labor complaint over payroll issues
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/BCN) – San Francisco public school teachers filed an unfair labor practice complaint Monday over the district's ongoing failure to fix a months-long payroll fiasco.
The United Educators of San Francisco, the teachers' union, filed the complaint with the California Public Employees Relations Board alleging that San Francisco Unified School District has failed to live up to its contract agreement and has denied and interfered with teachers' rights.
The issue stems from January of this year when the district implemented a new payroll system that has failed to pay or has under paid hundreds of teachers.
"Far from streamlining payroll and eliminating errors as intended, the District's new EMPower system has been an unmitigated disaster from the start," according to the complaint. "Hundreds of UESF bargaining unit members have been unpaid, underpaid, and/or incorrectly stripped of benefits since the District first began using its EMPower system. These errors continue to the present day."
Since the problem arose, teachers have held protests, shown up en masse at school board meetings, staged a week-long sit-in at district offices and filed hundreds of grievances, according to union officials.
The payroll troubles have resulted in serious harm to many teachers, some of whom have struggled to pay rent or provide basic necessities like food and clothing for themselves and their families, union officials said in a news release Tuesday.
"After eleven months of ongoing issues with no end in sight, we must use legal means to protect our members' fundamental rights and dignity," union officials said.
Also on Monday, Superintendent Matt Wayne declared a "payroll state of emergency," intended to help the district resolve the problem.
"It is long overdue for us to escalate this issue and take aggressive action," Wayne said in a news release.
He said the district hired a consultant in September to help deal with the issue, "removed bureaucratic barriers" to help teachers get paid, worked with the city to assist teachers keep their health benefits and is launching a call center to better field complaints and reports from staff.
"This plan that's been put in place to address our payroll issues will ultimately address any issues that the union has with how we're administering payroll and paying employees," Wayne said at a news conference Monday.
