Suit: teachers union officials are 'ghost employees'
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers employees should not be allowed to remain on the Philadelphia School District's payroll, a nonprofit created to battle public-sector unions argues in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers employees should not be allowed to remain on the Philadelphia School District's payroll, a nonprofit created to battle public-sector unions argues in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
On behalf of his client, Americans for Fair Treatment, David Osborne, general counsel for the Fairness Center, called the workers - whose salary, benefits, and pension costs are reimbursed by the PFT - "ghost employees."
Up to 63 PFT workers are contractually permitted to remain on the district's books, accruing seniority and pension time and receiving district health insurance. In practice, about 20 PFT employees are on the school system's payroll, including union president Jerry Jordan, who is classified as a teacher.
Though the PFT reimburses the district for employees' salary, benefit, and pension costs, the Fairness Center says the state has put about $1 million toward their benefits since 1999.
The Fairness Center argues that the district and the PFT have gone beyond the scope of their legal authority in striking this arrangement, which it says violates the state constitution because public money is paying for private work.
Jordan said in an interview that it was "unfortunate that this group chooses to malign people who happen to work for unions. To give the impression that we're doing something illegal is upsetting. They're just playing wrong."
The suit was filed in Common Pleas Court on Wednesday.
The Fairness Center said the PFT was taking advantage of the district as it struggles with years of classroom cuts and significant deficits.
"This is really about the machine of PFT - keeping the machine alive," Osborne said at a news conference.
Osborne also blamed the district for agreeing to keep the workers on its payroll and for losing oversight over its own employees. Jordan alone decides which district employees are on released time, Osborne said, and when workers switch to union jobs, they often get pay bumps.
The practice of allowing union workers to remain on the public-sector payroll is common in Philadelphia and around the country, but Osborne and others say it is unjust.
They are going after the PFT, they said, because of its broad use of the provision.
"This is the most widespread and egregious use we've ever seen," said Nate Bohlander, assistant general counsel for the Fairness Center, whose board president is chief executive of the Commonwealth Foundation, a free-market think tank based in Harrisburg
Americans for Fair Treatment is a new organization, members said, also focusing on people receiving "fair treatment from government unions." Officials declined to say how many members belong to the group, which has also taken aim at the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
One Americans for Fair Treatment member, George Coates, said Wednesday that all city teachers should be in classrooms and that he objected to the PFT practice.
"It does nothing to further the education of our children," said Coates, who works as a consultant in the wine and spirits industry and lives in Philadelphia.
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