What is a probationary employee? That’s the question we’re being asked to vote
upon this month via our requested approval of an MOU between the district and
one certain employee.
As I understand the situation, this employee was terminated
during the probationary portion of an initial appointment in a new support
position within the district. When the
department supervisor asked to speak with this employee, union representation
was requested by this individual. The
supervisor ended the meeting and agreed that the employee could bring someone
from the union to the continuation of the meeting with the supervisor. After a period of time elapsed, the
supervisor attempted to re-engage the
discussion with the employee, yet the union rep had not been summoned or had
not shown up.
Because the employee was on probationary status, because
there appeared to be no real significant effort to bring a union rep to the resumed meeting
in a reasonable period of time--- this employee was subsequently terminated by
this supervisor. This is allowed
because a probationary employee can be terminated any time with or without
cause. This is a universally accepted,
widely understood fact of known truth,
Period.
Three and a half weeks later, this same person was able to
be hired in another department of the school district, and during this time
this person filed a series of grievances over the action that led to her
termination from the initial job. At the
first two levels of grievance meetings, the district’s position with respect to
the termination was upheld.
End of
story, right?
No, not quite.
For reasons I do not understand, our attorney “negotiated” a
settlement with the union and their attorneys, after we had won two levels of grievance
hearings. This settlement includes a payment
