A trial date for a lawsuit between the Juneau School District and its support staff union won’t be decided on for another six months.
Juneau Education Support Staff, or JESS, sued the district last September, arguing the district didn’t follow its contract with the union when it ended RALLY, the district’s after-school and summer child care program. The district ended RALLY last August and leased space to private provider Auke Lake Preschool to run its own program.
RALLY used to be staffed by JESS employees. The union claimed the district should’ve followed its contract and done an investigation to see if work done by JESS employees would be cheaper with a contractor. The district claims it followed the terms of the contract and reassigned former RALLY staff to other district positions.
During a trial setting conference Monday, both parties agreed to delay setting a date since arbitration on the same issue is expected to also take place beforehand.
In addition to suing the district, the union is following a grievance process that has now escalated to arbitration. In an email, municipal attorney Emily Wright, one of the attorneys representing the district, said, “The plan is to wait for the arbitration process to take place.”
In this case, an arbitrator would hear both sides and issue a binding statement.
Jeff Kasper is the business manager at the Alaska Public Employees Association, which is the parent union for JESS. While it’s not common, he said the union decided to go through the grievance process and a lawsuit at the same time.
“Within the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, it’s hard to award punitive damages,” he said. “So that’s kind of why we filed the concurrent lawsuit, is that if we prevail, we’re going to be seeking damages.”
The complaint filed by JESS said the amount of damages will be determined during the trial. Another trial setting conference is scheduled for Sept. 9.
For the arbitration process, Kasper said an arbitrator and hearing date have not been selected yet.
