Larisa

EAST PROVIDENCE — Mayor Joseph S. Larisa Jr., a veteran lawyer, predicts the state Labor Relations Board will side with the local teachers union and find the School Committee unlawfully reduced its educators’ salaries and unilaterally docked their checks for health insurance costs.

“Mark my words, the School Committee will lose before the board,” Larisa said at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. “Does it matter? Not a hoot, because we will appeal to the Superior Court and the state Supreme Court if we have to.”

Larisa also predicted the issue will be debated and hung up in the courts well into next year.

The teachers contract expired Oct. 31 after negotiations, mediated and otherwise, failed. Late last year, after hearings, an arbitrator issued a nonbinding proposal — rejected by the school board — to freeze pay for one year and provide annual raises of 2 percent and 3 percent in the second and third years, respectively. The arbitrator also proposed phasing in insurance premium sharing, to 15 percent over three years.

The committee instead chose to impose a nearly 5-percent reduction in teachers’ base pay and to start payroll deductions equal to 20 percent of the cost of health insurance.

After the Superior Court and Supreme Court refused to interfere, the East Providence Education Association — which represents more than 500 teachers — appealed to the Labor Relations Board.

The state board agreed last week to issue a complaint against the committee and hear the matter next month. Although originally slated to start March 9, the first hearing date has been pushed back to March 19. All the meetings will be open to the public and held on the first floor of the Department of Labor and Training, 1511 Pontiac Ave., Cranston.

“It doesn’t matter whether we lose because they can’t force us to do anything [such as repay the money to the teachers],” Larisa said in a phone interview yesterday. “They can only rule whether the committee was lawful or unlawful with its actions. Everyone thinks it rests with this [state] board and it doesn’t.”

He also said the state board has a history of siding with unions.

“I’ve been around since 1992 and even before that, its decisions heavily favor organized labor,” Larisa said.

Union president Valarie Lawson disagreed. She noted that the Labor Relations Board is appointed by the governor and comprises a neutral member, three business people and two labor members. That makeup is hardly one that would favor unions, she said yesterday.

Said Lawson, “I certainly wouldn’t question the integrity of the labor board. We believe the merits of our case warranted those complaints. The complaints validated what we have been saying all along about the School Committee’s actions.”

apina@projo.com