Bayless Education Association sues school district
for denying right to elect bargaining representative

Bayless Education Association, an affiliate of the Missouri National Education Association, filed suit yesterday against the Bayless School District in an effort to enforce the educators’ right to elect a collective bargaining representative, a right the district has denied for the past year.

Approximately 90 percent of the district’s teachers signed collective bargaining authorization cards that state: “In order to exercise my rights under Section 1, Article 29 of the Missouri Constitution, I hereby authorize the Bayless Education Association, an affiliate of the Missouri National Education Association, to act as my exclusive representative for purposes of collective bargaining concerning wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.”

“This lawsuit marks the first lawsuit where a district has specifically denied educators their constitutional right to elect a bargaining representative since the 2007 Missouri Supreme Court decision affirming educators’ right to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing,” says Missouri NEA President Chris Guinther, a teacher on leave from the Francis Howell School District.

“Bayless School District’s teachers have a constitutional right to select their own bargaining representative democratically,” Guinther explains. “In every U.S. jurisdiction that recognizes a collective bargaining right, this right means holding a democratic election in which employees select a single organization as their exclusive bargaining representative. The organization selected to be the bargaining representative must represent all employees in bargaining and fulfilling a binding agreement with the district. Multi-party negotiations that involve an employer-created employee representative group rather than an elected exclusive representative group result in insurmountable practical and technical barriers to the negotiation and ratification of a legally binding contract. Bayless Education Association members are following the typical process to implement their collective bargaining rights, but school district administrators are putting up walls to hold back progress.”

The 35,000-member MNEA represents teachers, education support professionals, college faculty, retired teachers and students studying to be teachers in school districts and on college campuses throughout the state. It is the Missouri affiliate of the 3.2 million-member NEA.

For further information:
Jacquie Shipma
(573) 808-5871

April 2, 2007