800 NPS TEACHERS RECOUP $1 MILLION IN COVID RULING

By Walter Elliott

NEWARK – There are 800 United Federation of Teachers Local 481 members who may start seeing shares of a collective $1,000,000 in their next paychecks if they have not in their earlier checks since Nov. 23.

Roughly 20 percent of Newark Public Schools’ 4,000 UFT members will be receiving the $1 million from the school district in the form of sick or personal time reimbursement and of restored days used during the 2020-21 global COVID-19 pandemic. The teacher union local’s membership also includes aides, mechanics and other staff members.

NPS is actually making restitution to the 800 who were told by district administrators to use their sick pay and time while they were in COVID “isolation” or “quarantine.” They had to leave their schools when they were at least exposed to the virus from their students or others.

Arbitrator Robert C. Gifford, Esq. had awarded the $1 million in back sick pay and time in his final and binding ruling before the district and the union Nov. 23.

Gifford’s decision ended a chain of events which started when 400 UFT members filed a labor grievance against NPS and the Newark Board of Education Oct. 13, 2021. Both sides agreed to go the binding arbitration route, which brought them before the Monmouth Beach lawyer.

Attorneys for the district before Gifford confirmed that administrators told exposed staff that they had to isolate and not be quarantined. They were asserting that there is a difference in the two terms.

By telling exposed, positive tested or stricken staff to isolate, they would have to use their sick or personal days and pay while they were away. Had the administrators told affected staff to quarantine, the employees would not have their sick or personal time or pay deducted.

Lawyers for Local 481 pointed out that quarantine is spelled out in their collective bargaining agreements with the district – but that there is no difference to isolation except in application.

The contracts, going as far back as the 1970s, have “quarantine, as defined by the NBOE health service office and the employee’s physician,” as to where “no deduction of salary for a regular employee shall be made for absence.”

Some of the 800 affected members, however, exhausted their sick and/or personal time before a negative COVID test would allow them back in school. The situation puts some in a dilemma: return with the virus or miss a pay period while awaiting a negative test.

“Even if staff were exposed to COVID in schools, they were forced to use sick time,” said UFT Local 481 President John Abeigon Nov. 23, “In many cases, they were threatened with additional negative consequences.”

Gifford, in the end, cited the contractual stipulation on paid leave for quarantines include COVID-related cases.

 “I conclude that the broader, more commonly accepted meaning to the term ‘quarantine’ must be applied in this instance,” said Gifford.

Gifford, a full-time arbitrator since 2001, was NPS’ independent hearing officer 2001-03. He had been an arbitrator between the City of Newark and the Newark Firefighters Union, Newark and the SEIU and NJTransit and the UTU, among other recent cases.

Abeigon, on Nov. 25, that the firefighters union brought a similar issue against the city to court with limited success.

The $1 million being dispersed among the 800 union members may not be the windfall after first blush. Going by raw numbers, the million in back pay comes out to $1,250 per affected UFT member.

On average, a UFT teacher, going by the 2016-17 contract with NPS, makes a $75,000 annual salary. That salary, divided among the state’s 180 day minimum instruction calendar, comes out to $348.44 per day. It is not immediately known how much of that daily pay is put into the sick and personal day fund.

The 2016-17 contract, the latest available, was when NPS was still in New Jersey Department of Education control and overseen by a State District Superintendent.

NPS – in terms of its workforce, its 34,000 students, number of school buildings and annual budget – is the state’s largest public school district.

Neither NPS nor the NBOE have posted a response to Gifford’s ruling.

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