Unions Draw Battle Lines Over Santa Ana School Workers

A battle is shaping up for representation of about 1,400 non-teaching employees of the Santa Ana Unified School District between an AFL-CIO affiliated union and the California School Employees Assn., an independent union which now represents the workers.

The Orange County Public Employee Council, an umbrella group for several locals of the AFL-CIO Service Employees International Union, has hired seven full-time organizers to campaign at 43 school sites. The union also has been distributing “interest cards” to be signed and returned.

SEIU is seeking to represent teacher aides, campus security guards, maintenance workers, secretaries and others, said council director Fred Lowe.

Those workers now are members of the California School Employees Assn., which represents 90% of all classified employees in Orange County, according to field representative Ben Bustamante.

The union’s contract with the workers, which does not include teachers, expires in June.

Bustamante, who has worked in the school district for 11 years, said this was the first time he recalled another union trying to represent the district’s classified employees.

The Public Employee Council represents about 2,500 city employees in Costa Mesa, Anaheim and Santa Ana and the county.

If at least 30% of the union members sign interest cards by March, the state Public Employment Relations Board must hold an election in May or June.

Other unions, Bustamante said, could also get on the ballot with signatures of only 10% of the eligible employees.

Two other rival unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Assn., have also notified Santa Ana schools that they will attempt to represent classified employees, said Don Champlin, assistant superintendent of personnel services.

However, the council and the AFT are both affiliated with the AFL-CIO, and a local committee of the AFL-CIO has endorsed the council for the Santa Ana effort.

The California Teachers Assn., a member of the National Education Assn., recently hired one part-time staff member to assist a group of 20 classified employees expressing an interest in that union.

“We haven’t really started organizing (or) attempted to raid another union. We were just asked for our services, and we said ‘Sure, why not?’ ” said Bill Ribblett, a CTA staff member.

Lizzie Lyles, chapter president of California School Employees Assn., said she is confident the employees will vote to retain that union. CSEA’s accomplishments, she said, include winning $50 stipends for bilingual assistants and the paid Martin Luther King holiday.

“Because the three-year contract is up in June, they (the other unions) have a right to come in and challenge us,” Lyles said. “I feel whatever complaints there are, CSEA can work them out.”