DEARBORN – The Dearborn Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit against the Dearborn Public Schools Wednesday November 3.

The lawsuit claims that the Dearborn Public Schools are in violation of Michigan’s Public Sector labor law, by their putting a hold on all contract negotiations without the knowledge of the teachers’ union and without reason.

“When we met on Oct. 27, [members of] the teachers’ negotiating team were informed that [the] school board was no longer interested in meeting anymore until after fact finding,” said Christie Sipperly, president of the DFT. “We’ve been negotiating since April of 2009. The current contract expired on June 30, 2009.” Fact finding is scheduled for November 22.

The teachers agreed to a “step freeze” – to continue under the same conditions as the contract that expired in 2009 until current negotiations were completed. Under the “step freeze,” teachers have not received any increases in salary, no matter how many years they have been teaching, which Sipperly says affects their retirement. A similar “freeze” occurred in 2007 and 2008. Dearborn teachers have only received one salary increase in the last four years.

Sipperly feels the halt in negotiations was unreasonable, and had not expected this turn of events.

“Sometimes compromise happens in conversation and sometimes on paper,” she said. “We have presented formal proposals and countered. We have made [the] best progress in [the] last few months and I was optimistic we would have a contract.”

The last proposal was brought on September 2, and Sipperly said the proposal was turned down. She thinks they halted negotiations under the guise that the teachers were not giving any proposals. Sipperly feels they are not clear as to what a negotiation is.

“We were having effective conversations and coming up with proposals and agreements,” she said. “It’s been as if they want DFT to bring in a proposal and they say no, and then they want us to bring another. That is not a negotiation.”

The teachers will hold a rally on November 22 at 6:30 pm at the Administrative Service Center in Dearborn.

“I think we will win,” Sipperly said. “I think the judge will see this is an unfair labor practice. I’m hoping the judge will tell us to go back to the table.”

 The Arab American News attempted to contact Dearborn Public Schools, but a representative could not be reached.