Faculty union files labor complaint against Terra State

FREMONT - The Terra Faculty Association has filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the State Employment Relations Board against Terra State Community College.

TFA President Steve Bender said this week that the faculty union filed the charge with SERB against the college over what he described as a pattern of Terra State interfering with concerted activities that were within union members' employment rights.

"They have discriminated against members who do engage with the union," Bender said.

Amanda Pochatko, the college's marketing manager, said in an email Tuesday the college does not comment on pending litigation.

In its complaint, the faulty union alleged that around Dec. 12, the union became aware that the college had threatened faculty to cease "running to the union," to stay away from other faculty members, and interrogated employees about union activity in violation of state law.

The complaint added that the college disciplined nursing faculty member Susan Kajfasz Jan. 23 for engaging in concerted activity when Kajfasz confronted Dean Amy Anway Dec. 12 about advising other faculty to not confer with the union or herself.

Kajfasz received a written warning for violating the college's employee standards/code of ethics for arguing, raising her voice, throwing a tissue at the dean and telling Anway, her immediate supervisor, "You're going to hell."

Anway reported the Dec. 12 incident to Nanci Kosanka, Terra's assistant vice president for academic affairs, and said she felt threatened and intimidated by Kajfasz.

Kajfasz told The News-Messenger in January that she went to Anway's office Dec. 12 to discuss a rumor that the dean had told former physical therapy assistant professor Sue Hartman not to talk to her or to former nursing program director Holly Penhos.

In the college's findings report on the Kajfasz/Anway incident, Kajfasz reported that Anway told her she felt she needed to "protect people" from Kajfasz.

The college's findings report on the Kajfasz/Anway incident stated that Kajfasz had been counseled for inappropriate behavior in March 2017 for using inappropriate language and bullying and intimidating Treeva Frames, who was then director of nursing at Terra.

Kajfasz was not disciplined for that March 2017 incident and no record of it appeared in her personnel file, which was obtained by The News-Messenger in January through a public records request.

The faculty union appealed the college's ruling on Kajfasz's written warning, which went into the nursing professor's personnel file.

Kajfasz said she has been a public employee for 42 years and never had any previous disciplinary incidents on her record.

Bender said Terra State President Jerome Webster denied the union's appeal and that the union may take Kajfasz's case to arbitration.

dacarson@gannett.com

419-334-1046

Twitter: @DanielCarson7