Hammond teachers unfair labor practices dispute still not settled
Contributed By: The 411 News
Teachers union and school officials set for January 9th hearing with Indiana labor relations board
When the Hammond school board approved the Wellness Incentive Program that defined a new healthcare plan for its employees, it didn’t end the unfair labor practices claim filed by the district’s teachers union.
At Tuesday night’s Board of School Trustees meeting, the 3-1 vote for the Wellness Program plan gives employees who enroll a reduction in monthly premiums that had skyrocketed for 2025.
Without the Wellness Program, teachers on the family plan will pay an additional $3205 a year in 2025. Enrollees in the family plan will only pay about half of the yearly cost increase, while the district pays the remainder.
Individual coverage without the Wellness Program will cost an additional $1,072 in 2025. Individual enrollees will only pay $271 of the yearly cost increase and the district will pay the $801 remainder.
The Wellness Program requires employees to complete a yearly health screening and certify they are tobacco or nicotine free.
The Hammond Federation of Teachers filed its claim on November 14, asking the Indiana Education Employees Relations Board to stop the healthcare premium increase and stop the district from enrolling employees in the healthcare plan.
The union also asked the labor relations board for a decision on its unfair labor practices claim, stating the district refused to bargain with the union on the 2025 increases in employees healthcare coverage.
Louis Gikas, the HFT President said the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board’s decision of November 21st denied the union’s request to halt the premium increase and open enrollment, but the unfair labor practices claim is still before the labor relations board.
Both parties will appear at a January 9th IEERB hearing.
The school district hoped the reductions in the 2025 premium increases would satisfy the union; instead the union used it as grounds for its unfair labor practices complaint.
On September 30, the district and the union approved a 1-year contract for the 2024-25 school year. The agreement included the amounts the school district would contribute for individual and family health plans coverage. For single coverage, the contract stipulated the district would provide $9,120. For family coverage, the district would provide $27,280.
According to the district’s Chief Financial Officer Eric Kurtz, the school district learned on October 8th that Aetna had increased the costs for health plan coverage in 2025.
Representatives from the district and union met during October to negotiate the proportions each would contribute to the 2025 cost increases.
According to the union’s unfair labor practices complaint, the district “notified the Union and school employees that it was unilaterally increasing the health insurance premium payment for the Respondent’s self-insured plan” to cover the 2025 increases.
Yearly single coverage for 2025 had increased to $12,472, up from $11,400 in 2024, a $1,072 increase; monthly premiums would rise to $279.33 in 2025, up from $190 in 2024, an increase of $89.33. Yearly family coverage for 2025 had increased to $37,305, up from $34,100 in 2024, a $3,205 increase; monthly premiums would rise to $835.42, up from $568.33, an increase of $267.09.
The union’s complaint said the district refused to increase its proportional contribution to the premium payments.
“This meant that the full amount of the increase would fall upon the teachers,” the union stated in its complaint. “The amount of the increase and the unilateral manner in which it was adopted and imposed constitute significant departures from the parties’ past practice wherein premium increases would be shared between the parties and negotiated between the parties.”
Additionally, the union’s complaint stated, the district “intentionally did not divulge its intention to pass the entire cost of this increase on to the members while the parties” were bargaining the 2024-2025 teachers contract.
Gikas said the HFT would not have agreed to the 2024-2025 contract had it known the district would not contribute a portion to the increase in premium payments. “The district bargained in bad faith.”
Story Posted:12/21/2024
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