Public Employee Press

Local 372 wins job and back pay for probationer

Local 372 taught the Dept. of Education a lesson on the difference a day makes when an impartial arbitrator sided with the union and reinstated a School Aide with back pay.

DOE had fired Anthony Conca D’oro without warning in January 1998 on the day before they said his six-month probationary period ended. “I was in shock,” said Mr. Conca D’oro, a former construction worker who loved his new job working with schoolchildren. “I had good recommendations. I thought I was doing a great job.”

Just a week before he was fired, Mr. Conca D’oro received recommendation from the principal of P.S. 139 praising him as an exemplary employee who “got along well” with co-workers and students.

Management’s reason for terminating him was unsubstantiated and puzzling, said Local 372 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa.

DOE’s timing was even more suspect. The agency contended that Mr. Conca D’oro’s probationary period — and the school term — began simultaneously the day the city’s 1.5 million school-aged children returned to class. As a probationer, he was denied the right to a discharge review.

DC 37 and DOE Employees Local 372 said that didn’t add up. Council Rep Phyllis Wambser and DC 37 lawyer Tom Cooke argued that since Mr. Conca D’oro was in training for two days before school opened, he successfully completed his probation before his termination.

Basing his decision solely on the letter of the law, the arbitrator agreed with the union. The final ruling retains the flexibility of the contract’s definition of a school term, which begins the day employees — not students — return to school. The arbitrator ordered DOE to reinstate Mr. Conca D’oro as of September 2003 with two-and-a-half years back pay. “The DOE got away with it for five years,” he said, “but I am happy to be back at work.”