I’ll try to keep this brief. I’m a unionized special Ed teacher for a County office of education, meaning we have classrooms scattered throughout the county and are guests on different district’s campuses. My class is the only county class at the school I’m currently assigned to. I’ve been with my employer 17 years, am tenured and all my reviews have been good.
I had a knee injury (not work related) in January and have been out since then. They couldn’t find a sub for my class so they moved all my students into other classes on a different campus with different teachers.
I’m scheduled to come back May 2 (Monday) and I’ve been asking my principal for the past three weeks if I’m going back to the same place. There are only 4 weeks left once I come back in the school year, so she said that most likely she will not send my students back. So I’ve been asking where she will put me and she hasn’t answered me. I need to know because my daughter goes to the school I work at and I need to know where I’ll be and what hours so that I can arrange for her care and drop off/pick up times. So I asked my principal several times and she kept saying she didn’t know. Now she’s not calling or emailing me back. I got a zoom invitation in my email for a meeting this Thursday with her at 12, and that’s it.
I read my collective bargaining agreement and it says for changes of assignment (location, hours), HR has to give us notice in writing five working days in advance of changes. I suspect that my principal wants to just make me a floater, moving me from school to school (with different hours) each day the rest of the school year wherever they don’t have subs.
This is not acceptable to me. I have a family whose needs I need to account for. I’m thinking about whipping out that bargaining agreement and telling her that I will need 5 days notice, otherwise I’ll be at my assigned worksite during my regular hours. I could stand my ground like that but….I’m scared.
My biggest fear is that the county I work for is very large, and I’ve heard of them assigning people they’re unhappy with to work three hours driving time away. Yes, the county is that large.
I’m pissed at myself for being afraid, but I am. I need my job, I’m the primary breadwinner and make good money since I’ve been there so long.
And my union rep isn’t helpful when issues like this come up.
What would you do?