The union that represents Alaska teachers is entering into a cash settlement with four employees who accused its former executive directive of workplace harassment.

This is the second time in three years the National Education Association and NEA-Alaska, Inc. will pay out cash to employees and former employees who claimed to have been harassed by Thomas Harvey, the former executive director.

In the first settlement, the union paid $750,000 to three workers in 2006. The second settlement will be for $170,000 to four workers, according to Carmen Flores, a Seattle-based trial attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC sued the second time on behalf of employees who accused Harvey of intimidating subordinates while the first lawsuit was being litigated. “This stuff was happening, even while we were trying to resolve the first case,” Flores says.

Harvey was accused of targeting women for workplace bullying, but the harassment was not sexual in nature, she says.

Harvey and NEA-Alaska parted ways in 2006, according to NEA Alaska President Barb Angaiak. She called the current case “residual” from the previous lawsuit. “I think that this was really an attempt to continue the complaints when they really had already been dealt with,” Angaiak says. “Everybody should realize that this is it, it’s over. He is no longer in our employ and there are no more complaints related to this.”

Angaiak says the national union and NEA-Alaska share costs of both settlements. She declined to say how much of the settlement was NEA-Alaska. “The only thing I can share with you is that it is a shared cost,” she says.

The court filing that revealed the settlement lacks detail. It just tells the court that a settlement has been reached. Flores says more details will be released soon. She expects a final settlement by the end of the week and said the EEOC will issue a press release after that.

Cash settlements with the EEOC get paid to the plaintiff/employees who initially complained, Flores says. In cases such as this one, the government also typically requires the defendants run training programs in the workplace and post signs describing the settlement and the type of illegal behavior that got the company in court to begin with.

Flores says the new settlement would extend training and posting requirements NEA-Alaska was obliged to conduct under the 2006 settlement. “Because we had to sue them a second time, they get to put the signs back up,” she says.

scott@anchoragepress.com