

Employees voted 36-8 on Jan. 11. The election was conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Forty-four of the 48 employees eligible to vote cast ballots. The union had 10 days to contest the outcome but failed to do so.
Employees said Friday the union never answered their questions during and after a lengthy period of bargaining.
Laura Cooper, a family advocate for WCCS, said union representatives “picked and choosed” to visit some employees’ houses and to call some a week before the decertification vote. She said there were still no answers until later that week.
“They didn’t call me, but they visited my house,” said Marta Pringle, a teacher’s aide and bus monitor, who, along with Cooper, helped spearhead the effort to remove the union.
When answers were forthcoming, employees were not pleased.
“The contract was benefitting nothing,” said Denise Edmonson, a teacher’s aide at Head Start in Abingdon. “We were losing things. It wasn’t benefitting us.”
An attempt to reach Al Pieper, an officer of SEIU Local 73, was unsuccessful.
Head Start is a federally-funded program for children between the ages of 3 and 5 who are income eligible. The program offers child care, health care, social services and family services. WCCS is based in Monmouth but has centers in other area communities, including one on East Tompkins Street in Galesburg.
Diann Gravino, executive director of WCCS, said, “I’m very pleased with the results.”
The official notification of the union’s decertification at WCCS was received Wednesday.
Gravino said when Bruce Beal, a Canton-based attorney who negotiated on behalf of WCCS, first sat down at the table with the union, the local Head Start was paying $3 more than minimum wage for the lowest-paid entry position. She called the health-care plan “the Cadillac of insurance” and both full- and part-time employees were in a retirement plan.
A group of 13 employees and Gravino gathered Friday to talk to The Register-Mail. Gravino offered to let employees talk without management present, but no one felt the need to split the group. The women were relaxed and joked with each other, without worrying about who received the brunt of the humor.
Cooper said the first attempt to decertify the union was not allowed because the SEIU had pending unfair labor charges against WCCS.
WCCS employees voted 34-16, with five abstentions, in June 2005 to form the union.
Gravino said 2 years later, “We had a contract that had been approved by our board of directors.”
The contract was approved in November.
“Because they approved the contract, the union withdrew their unfair labor practices charges,” Gravino said.
“We started again before Thanksgiving (with decertification proceedings) and then we just took it from there,” Cooper said.
Dixie Churn, a teacher who has worked at WCCS for 18 years, said the vote was not only directed at SEIU but against any union.
“I knew it was bad then and I was glad to see them go,” Churn said of the entire period. Gravino said tension grew after the vote to unionize. But she said the employees, pro- or anti-union, never let those feelings seep into the classrooms.
“I would say for the last year and a half, it’s been like it used to be,” Gravino said. “I guess what I feel the most upset and angry about is the people who came in here and tried to slander Head Start. ... It makes it hard when you’re a professional and you know this is the best place it is,” Churn said.
Asked what changed between the vote to unionize and the one to decertify, Churn said simply, “The ones that caused all the trouble” left.
“I’m proud to be able to say I’ve worked for Head Start and Diann Gravino for 18 years,” Churn said.
“I think we all feel the same way,” Pringle said, as others murmured in agreement.
“It’s a positive place and a positive place to work,” Edmonson said.
(galesburg.com)