As a single mother, I’ve built my life around my daughter and her evolving needs. She has always filled me with hope, pride, and love. After she began suffering unexplained seizures, though, heartache was unavoidable. Working a demanding job while caring for her hasn’t been easy, but I’ve become accustomed to overcoming obstacles at home and at work.

My latest challenge involves both—defending myself from a union that made me choose between my daughter’s medical needs and my job.

I’m one of only a few women working as an equipment operator on a PennDOT crew in Venango County, about an hour north of Pittsburgh. I plow snow, operate heavy machinery, and dodge traffic for a living. I’ve been told I’m “a girl in a man’s world,” and in a sense that’s true. The helmets don’t fit. The gloves are too big.

I chose this job not because it was easy, but because it provides stability and benefits for me and my daughter. Plus, there’s a union, AFSCME, Council 13, that says it’s on my side.

I know unions. My dad had a union job for over 40 years. For me, it’s been 10 years. In a union, seniority trumps nearly everything. A coworker once told me, “All you have is your seniority.” It affects every aspect of the job, and every day of seniority matters. It’s the difference between working out in the cold or operating equipment in comparative comfort. It determines whether I drive 10 miles to work or 50.

Seniority is why I can keep a full-time job while caring for my sick daughter.

In March of 2020, the pandemic hit PennDOT like most other employers, and I was briefly paid to stay home. Soon, I got a call and had to choose—right then on the phone—to use my paid time off (PTO) or go on unemployment.

To me, unemployment was terrifying. I felt like I’d be dependent on someone else to put food on the table. I’d also sacrifice income and seniority. My PTO, though, allowed me to care for my daughter when seizures made her unable to walk and to take her to specialists for treatment.

I was backed into a corner and didn’t know the right answer. I ended up exhausting nearly all my PTO before we resumed work.

Soon, I found out that one PennDOT crew in the county kept working and avoided my agonizing decision. This crew included the union president, his relatives, and other union officials—all men. Some of them had less seniority than me.

I was stunned. I never questioned whether the union would honor seniority rights. It’s written into our contract. I could—should—have been working on that crew instead of burning through my PTO.

But in a crisis, my local union officials watched each other’s backs and put me and my daughter at risk by making their own rules.

Many of my colleagues were affected, but none had the motivation I did to push back. I’ve had to delay an overnight test for my daughter because I no longer had the time off. I called the union’s headquarters in Harrisburg expecting they would somehow make it right, but I got no help or even sympathy.

If I didn’t know it before, I knew it then: Sometimes being a mother means standing up when everyone else has let you down.

I couldn’t afford a lawyer, but I researched a law firm, the Fairness Center, that is representing me for free. In April, I filed a lawsuit to ensure my union follows its legal duty to fairly represent me and, of course, does not discriminate against me because I’m a woman.

No matter what happens in court, I assure you that nothing will keep my daughter from getting the care she needs. It will either be hard, or it will be harder—but I will find a way.

Yes, the union and its “boys’ club” should honor seniority rights. No, I shouldn’t have to file a lawsuit to get what I’ve earned. But we’ll be okay. Because, at the end of the day, making sure everything is okay is what being a mother is all about.

Mindy McFetridge is a PennDOT transportation equipment operator in Venango County and is the recipient of a PennDOT Workplace Hero award.

The post Op-Ed: Standing up when my union let me down appeared first on The Fairness Center.

August 17, 2015, Philadelphia, Pa.—A panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals has unanimously struck down a practice letting certain public employees work full-time as union representatives while drawing public pay, a ruling with implications for Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (“PFT”) routinely takes teachers from the classroom to perform union work. These “ghost teachers” receive taxpayer-funded salaries and pension benefits without stepping foot in a classroom.

“The PFT should take note of Arizona’s ruling,” said David Osborne, General Counsel at the Fairness Center, which will file an appeal today with the Philadelphia County Court on behalf of Americans for Fair Treatment (“AFT”), challenging the PFT’s “ghost teacher” scheme. “For decades, PFT has siphoned teachers from the classroom, a practice that hurts teachers and students in Philadelphia. Public servants should not be staffing union offices, period. If unions need employees, they can hire their own.”

The appeal comes after a Philadelphia judge ruled in July that AFT, an organization representing Philadelphia teachers and taxpayers, lacked standing in its suit seeking to end PFT’s “ghost teacher” practice.

Yet, teachers, students, and taxpayers suffer as PFT raids classrooms to staff its union offices and, in some cases, do the union’s political work. PFT President Jerry Jordan, a ghost teacher himself, has spent almost three decades working for the union while collecting a public salary, accruing pension benefits, and receiving free health care.

“Public education should prioritize students, not union leaders,” David Osborne continued. “The Arizona court’s ruling is not simply the right legal result; it’s common sense, and Philadelphia should follow its example.”

Background

In February, the Fairness Center filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia County court on behalf of its client Americans for Fair Treatment, a nonprofit membership organization, seeking to end the practice of union work on school time, which illegally devotes public resources to a private organization.

Union work on school time, sometimes called “release time,” “official time,” or “union leave,” is particularly egregious in Philadelphia where the district’s collective bargaining agreement with the PFT allows up to 63 ghost teachers like Jerry Jordan to:

• Receive a publicly-funded district salary
• Retain district-provided insurance and benefits
• Accrue seniority as if they were still teaching
• Receive credit toward state pensions

Hard working city teachers are suffering as a consequence: Under the district’s “last-in, first-out” policy, a teacher with years of dedicated classroom teaching experience would be fired before one of these ghost teachers, if layoffs became necessary.

Though the PFT appears to be voluntarily reimbursing the district for much of the cost associated with these ghost teachers, the collective bargaining agreement between the PFT and the district does not require them to do so. Additionally, there is no evidence that the state has been reimbursed for public pension costs, amounting to $1 million since 1999.

Documents

• Backgrounder
• Complaint

Plaintiff

Americans for Fair Treatment is a nonprofit membership organization which equips and empowers Americans to receive fair treatment from government unions. For more information, visit americansforfairtreatment.org.

David Osborne is available for comment today. Contact Conner Drigotas at 717.409.6964 or cddrigotas@fairnesscenter.org to schedule an interview.

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The Fairness Center is a nonprofit, public interest law firm offering free legal services to those hurt by public-sector union officials. For more information, visit www.fairnesscenter.org.

The post Will Court Ruling Bust Philadelphia Ghost Teachers? appeared first on The Fairness Center.