District Claims Against Union Rejected

A judge has dismissed two complaints by the Orange Unified School District that teachers union officials negotiated in bad faith and used strong-arm tactics during last year’s contract talks.

James W. Tamm, an administrative law judge for the Public Employment Relations Board, ruled last week that the union’s bargaining team did not break labor laws when it refused to support a tentative salary agreement, which was later narrowly rejected by teachers.

Tamm also denied the district’s allegation that union president John Rossman used threats of criminal and civil complaints as a bargaining tool during salary negotiations last year.

But Tamm harshly criticized Rossman for what he called “deceitful and manipulative” behavior during the ongoing conflict between the union and the district over teacher salaries.

The judge also wrote that Rossman’s testimony was “so lacking in credibility that much of it appears to be deliberately untruthful.”

Tamm agreed with the school district’s allegations that Rossman misrepresented facts about the negotiations to union members and made obvious threats of legal action against individual school district negotiators.

But school district lawyers failed to prove that Rossman was acting on behalf of the union, the Orange Unified Education Assn., Tamm wrote.

Threats of litigation “would be a clear indication of Mr. Rossman’s bad faith if he had been representing” the union, Tamm wrote.

Rossman said Thursday he thought Tamm’s dismissal of the school district’s complaints vindicated the union, and he contradicted the judge’s comments about his conduct.

“It’s totally inconsistent to rule on facts and say that what I said was true, then turn around and say it was deceitful,” said Rossman, a veteran elementary school teacher in Orange Unified.

The school board planned to discuss an appeal of the ruling at its meeting Thursday night. “We believe that [Tamm’s] legal decision was erroneous,” district spokesperson Judy Frutig said.

The latest round of salary negotiations fell apart last month after union officials declined to present the school district’s final offer to teachers for a vote.