PERRYVILLE FAMILY CRISIS CENTER HALTS SERVICES

PERRYVILLE -- The Regional Family Crisis Center faces a crisis itself in dealing with employee problems that have caused the Perryville center to temporarily stop residential care of battered women and prompted terminated staff to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

Three employees who were terminated last month talked to an investigator with the regional office of the NLRB in St. Louis on Thursday, said on the employees, Lori Schumer Kile, who was a crisis advocate and court advocate at the center. They charge the center with firing employees because the workers filed a grievance about working conditions, she said.

Carlene Rauh, president of the board of directors of the center that serves victims of domestic violence and other types of family crisis, said the employees presented a list of grievances to the board.

"The grievances were investigated by the board," Rauh said, and some actions were taken. The terminations came because the board determined the center needed to be reorganized. All employees except the director were terminated on March 10, Rauh said, although one was rehired as a clerk.

Because there were no longer enough employees to staff a 24-hour residential center, that part of the center was closed, Rauh said. However, the center is still open during regular business hours, is answering a 24-hour hot line and will assist clients in finding a safe place, getting protection orders and finding services. She said battered women shelters in other counties are helping until the Perryville center can reopen its residential facility.

Kile said the grievances were brought before the board of directors in December because working conditions had become unbearable at the Perryville center.

Kile said there were three main issues: Staff members were doing administrative work when their funding grants required them to spend 100 percent of their time on client services; Director Dr. Linda Fulton made negative remarks to staff members, wasn't supportive and was unwilling to talk about problems; and staff members didn't feel clients were being treated compassionately enough by the director.

"We had exit evaluations where clients stated their satisfaction with the center but their dissatisfaction with the director," Kile said.

Rauh said the board meeting to discuss the grievances was eight hours long, and board members listened to each staff member's complaints and concerns.

"The board investigated all the allegations," Rauh said. "When we checked them out, we found nothing."

Rauh said the Missouri Department of Public Safety, which oversees most of the grants the center receives, annually monitors services provided by the center and has never lodged a complaint. The employee complaints about the director could not be substantiated, Rauh said. "All we had was hearsay," she said.

The client exit evaluations were looked at, but Rauh said a number of them were not signed or the names were blanked out because of privacy concerns, so there was no way to check out the complaints. Plus, Rauh said, the evaluations were conducted by the staff members who had complaints about the director.

The investigation of the grievances did prompt the board to make some policy changes, which were outlined in a letter of directive sent to employees Feb. 28. "It explained the expectations of the board as to the future operations of the center," Rauh said.

These included having counselors, who are contracted from outside the crisis center to work with clients, do the exit evaluations; defining job duties to eliminate questions about what each employee is responsible for; and instituting a policy that employees could only communicate with the board through the director.

"We were given no one we could talk to," Kile said. "One of the issues in the grievance was that we had never been able to talk to the director."

Kile also said the policy defining job duties was vague. "It said the director was personally responsible for certain duties. Does that mean she is required to do them herself or can she still delegate them and just make sure someone else does them?" Kile asked.

Rauh said they tried running the center under the new directives, but within a few weeks it became obvious to the board that the situation there had not improved.

The board was also beginning to question why the center had so few clients. At times there were no clients being served at all when other centers in the area were overflowing, Rauh said. The investigation of that question is still going on, she said.

"The board decided it was best to reorganize the center, looking at all the positions, the services we provide and how those are provided," Rauh said.

The reorganization meant terminating all employees and closing the residential center, Rauh said. There was one family in the residential center at the time. The crisis center offered to pay for a hotel room for her. But the terminated employees, not thinking those arrangements were adequate, found another place for the woman and her four children to stay.

The terminated employees were told they could reapply for their jobs, and four of the five employees have done so, Rauh said.

Kile said she believes she was fired because she and other employees filed grievances about their work situation. So she, Catherine Eberhardt and Jennifer Klobe filed a charge, allegations made against an employer, with the NLRB, she said.

Employees trying to improve working conditions as a group are protected under the National Labor Relations Act, said Karen Rengstorf of the regional office of the NLRB in St. Louis.

Rengstorf said the charge is under investigation, and most investigations are completed within 60 days. Then the regional director will determine if there has been a violation of the National Labor Relations Act, she said.

Rauh said the board has gotten a copy of the charge, and an attorney is going to investigate it.

But Rauh wants to concentrate on getting the center reorganized. She said the facility in Perryville is a beautiful one that that the community has worked hard to support. "There is a real need for our services, and we want to get back to concentrating on providing them," Rauh said.