Labor Relations at the Ohio Education Association, or Don’t Call Your Ex-Boss a Slimebag
For a labor union, the Ohio Education Association has had its share of labor unrest with its own employees. Last month’s staff strike is only the latest example. OEA also sued its staff unions in 2005 and settled a $3.75 million class action lawsuit brought by retirees.
Those were big battles, but OEA also knows how to build mountains out of molehills, as evidenced by the years-long lawsuit it brought against former assistant executive director and general counsel Christopher A. Lopez. Lopez resigned his position in 2005, and OEA subsequently sued him for breach of his severance agreement, which stipulated he would not “at any time disparage, defame, or otherwise derogate Employer’s Officers, Executive Committee Members, employees or agents.”
