The Wayland Board of 
Education Monday night was presented with three grievances from employees with the school’s food service program.
Tom Greig, former Wayland High School teacher and now UNISERV director for the southwest region of the Michigan Education Association, outlined three grievances, but promised three more at the board’s work session Monday, March 18.
All three he talked about had been denied by Wayland Superintendent Norm Taylor.
One complaint was about the school district’s increasing use of a third party for food service and concessions at athletic events, particularly football and boys’ and girls’ basketball games. Greig acknowledged the food service workers and school district did not reach agreement on a new contract as of Sept. 1, 2014, but there was a verbal agreement in which volunteers and members of the New Life Church could handle “cold food” at the concessions while certified food service workers would sell “hot foods,” such as hot dogs, pizzas, hot pretzels, nachos and popcorn.
Taylor insisted in writing there had been no signature from the association, but it was signed by Food Service Director Sara Parr.
Greig said the situation probably was driven by money. He maintained that in the 650 work hours lost by food service employees, at time and a half for overtime on a $12.75 average hourly rate, they lost $12,400 in wages.
Greig stated food service workers were present at athletic concessions for only 16 of 55 instances, or only 29 percent of the time.
Taylor wrote there was no legal requirement for the schools to use food service workers all events.
Greig said, “We ask the district to uphold its contractual agreement to allow food service workers to work the hot food events… We had an agreement to start the year, but that contract has been broken.”
The school district maintains there was no written agreement.
Taylor asserted, “The association is not entitled to exclusively perform concession stand work at athletic events. There has been no violation because it hasn’t violated any past practices.”
Another grievance dealt with employees whose hours were reduced on half days without 30-days prior notice. The school district offered to allow employees to work a full day Wednesday, May 13, to make up for the loss, but the association is insisting pay for all three days in question, Jan. 20 and 21 and Feb. 4 be reimbursed.
Greig asserted, “The district has the right to change hours, but they have a duty to provide the association with 30 days notice. Subsequent to us bringing this up, they are now providing 30-day notice.”
The third grievance was over food service employees who were required to provide extra meals for catering during regular work hours, which Greig insisted is a violation of state and federal wage and hours laws.
“We ask the district to come to some sort of resolution of this because it’s hurting our employees.”
He maintained that workers were hard pressed to do their customary work in addition to preparing the catered food on the same day, causing them to skip 15-minute breaks.
Greig hinted that a couple of the grievances that will be discussed May 18 will be about teachers having to fill in for substitutes, using up their free periods, and practices governing use of substitute food workers.
PHOTO: Tom Grieg
