Lakeside High School employee appeals ruling that forces union representation
Oct. 26—COLUMBUS — A Lakeside High School guidance counselor who wanted to choose her own attorney in a dispute with the Ashtabula Area City School District has appealed a lower court ruling she had to accept union representation.
LHS guidance counselor Barbara Kolkowski filed the original complaint nearly two years ago in Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas to stop the Ashtabula Area Teachers Association from requiring her to accept its representation.
When her case was denied, last January, she appealed the lower court ruling to Ohio's 11th District Court of Appeals.
Kolkowski said she is not a member of the union and should not be forced to accept the representation.
The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based policy group, is representing Kolkowski and on Friday it filed an appeal of the 11th District Court's ruling with the Ohio Supreme Court.
In the appeal brief, the institute urged the court to hear the case and recognize that a union cannot force her to accept union legal representation to arbitrate her workplace grievance.
"When the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Janus v. AFSCME, it recognized that public employment does not require public employees to surrender their constitutional rights," said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute and an attorney representing Kolkowski. "Ohio has recognized that same right in its constitution and laws. But that is just what the union is forcing her to do — surrender her right to hire her own lawyer, at her own expense, to represent her in a workplace arbitration dispute."
Carson said the Ohio Supreme Court now has an opportunity to vindicate Kolkowski's right to have her own legal counsel.
When a dispute arose in September 2020 regarding duties assigned to her in a supplemental contract, Kolkowski pursued remedies through the contractual grievance process and asked that the union submit her grievance to arbitration as required by her district's collective bargaining agreement.
Kolkowski also asked that she be able to hire her own private attorney at her own expense rather than rely upon the union's designated representative, who is not required to be a lawyer.
The union refused her request and denied Kolkowski her right to associate with and speak through her own counsel. The Buckeye Institute sued on her behalf.
