Labor Relations in Education: Policies, Politics, and Practices PDF
Preview Labor Relations in Education: Policies, Politics, and Practices
Labor Relations in Education Policies, Politics, and Practices Todd A. DeMitchell Published in partnership with the Association of School Business Officials International ROWMAN ck LSTTLEFSELD EDUCATION ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham New York Toronto Pl?/ttlozlth, UK Published in partnership with the Association of School Business Officials lntemational Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Education A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman 8r Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmaneducation.co~n Estover Road Plyn~outhP L6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright O 2010 by Todd A. DeMitchell All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written pernlission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication lnfo~mationA vailable Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data DeMitchell. Todd A. Labor relations in education : policies, politics, and practices I Todd A. DeMitchell. p. cm. "Published in partnership with the Association of School Business Officials International." ISBN 978-1-60709-583-5 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-1-60709-584-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-1-60709-585-9 (electronic) 1. Collective labor agreements-Education, Higher-United States. 2. Collective bargaining-Education-lJnited States. I. Association of School Business Officials International. 11. Title. LB2335.875.U6D46 2010 33 1.89'041371 100973-4~22 200903 1843 Printed in the United States of America aTM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSIINISO 239.48-1992. Contents Acknowledgments Chapter One Introduction SECTION I POLICIES Chapter Two Labor Relations in Education Chapter Three The Legal Framework SECTION I1 POLITICS Chapter Four Conflict and Community Chapter Five Professionalism and Unionism Chapter Six Reform and Labor Relations SECTION I11 PRACTICES Chapter Seven Preparation and Practice: At the Table Chapter Eight The Future of Professional Relations Chapter Nine Glossary with Some Comments Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C About the Author Acknowledgments I wish to thank my father, Bill DeMitchell, for his insight inlo collective bar- gaining as well as into life. He was the chief spokesperson for the classified employees in a high school district in Southern California. He first introduced me to the importance of trust and integrity as well as bargaining hard to rep- resent your constituency. His help over the years is deeply appreciated. And, I always acknowledge Terri, my wife, and the central role that she has in my life. Chapter 1 Introduction We have not been able to achieve all that we had hoped for through the collective bargaining process, and it is time to do something additional and different. -A1 Shanker, 1985' In the last fifty-plus years teacher unions have impacted the governance of America's public schools. The two teacher unions have become major policy and political players not only at the local school district level, but also at the national level. In those states that have public sector collective bargaining laws, governance has become bilateral on issues of wages, benefits, and terms and conditions of employment. As educators pursue reform strategies, those strategies must also come to the bargaining table because real reform impacts terms and conditions of employment. Understanding unions, their history and their work, is important for effec- tive school stewardship. This is true for all educators. Administrators must work with unions, and teachers work in a collective bargaining environment and need to understand how their union works and what a collective bargain- ing environment means to their professional pra~tice.~ This book focuses on the policies and laws that gave rise to public sec- tor bargaining, the politics that accompany the competition for scarce resources-who gets what?-and the practices of bargaining and managing a contract. The eight chapters are divided into three sections with a look to the future, Chapter 8, and a glossary of terms, Chapter 9. The first chapter of the section Policies, "Labor Relations in Education," explores the work of unions, the policieslcontracts that are the outcome of their work, and how the contract formalizes, and standardizes relationships. The next chapter, Chapter Three, "The Legal Framework," focuses on the his- tory of teacher unions, their relationship to the National Labor Relations Act and the resulting industrial labor relations model for public sector collective bargaining, and the retrenchment of public unionism. The second section, Politics, has three chapters. The fourth chapter, "Community and Conflict," casts collective bargaining within the political atmosphere of competing interests. Chapter 5 reviews the conundrum of being a member of a profession and being a member of a union-the issue of whether the organization is called an association or a union underscores this paradox. Teachers may want to be seen as members of a professionkasso- ciation, but may be willing to engage in union activities (strikes, work to rule,%tc.) to achieve their self-interests? Chapter 6 discusses how policies of reform fare at the bargaining table. Judith Warren Little underscores the importance of this topic writing that there is scant knowledge about the "rela- tive salience of the union compared with other sources in shaping teachers' response to or involvemenl in reform initiative^."^ The third section is Practices. This section includes Chapter 7, "Preparation and Practice: At the Table." It provides the context for what happens at the table and suggestions for how to prepare for bargaining. A full simulation, the Arroyo Wells School District Simulation, is included in the Appendix.j I developed and use this simulation in my public sector collective bargaining course. The simulation begins with all students being placed on either the management or labor bargaining team. They learn to work together in their teams developing proposals and strategies to further the interests of their constituency, the union members or the school district. I conclude the course with ten hours of expedited bargaining. I have provided all of the backup materials that I use in the simulation. They are found in Appendix A numbers one through thirteen. Normally I do not provide these backup materials. This allows the students to figure what information they do not have that they need in order to craft propos- als. This is not possible in this format. However, I do encourage the students to go through the process of analyzing what information is needed but not available. This will add to the real world skills that are necessary to bargain effectively. In addition, 1 have provided a statement of bargaining interests for both bargaining teams to use as a guide in preparing for bargaining. Appendix B has the interest letter for management and Appendix C has the interest letter for the union. There is no effective way to keep the contents of the interest letters secret; interests of the parties will come out in the negotiation process, but I request that the bargaining parties refrain from reading the other's inter- est letters. Introduction 3 Throughout the book I consistently use the terms union and manage- ment. These are terms that are used in private sector labor relations. I do not specifically discuss public sector unions that include custodians, clerks, secretaries, bus drivers, or maintenance workers. This does not mean that these unions and the labor relations that characterize those employees are not important-they are important. But I have limited space. The public sector collective bargain laws that pertain to teachers also pertain to other unions in a school district including administrator unions, which I will not be able to discuss as well. I approach labor relations using Getting TogetheP and Getting to Yes7 as conceptual frameworks. Consequently, the focus is not on just getting a con- tract. The success of bargaining is not predicated upon signing the contract. Success is determined by whether the labor relations, employee/employer relations are enhanced and improved or at a n~inin~unont~ h armed. Bargain- ing is not a success if one side or the other is angry at the end of bargain- ing and has a score to settle in the next round. Fisher and Brown in Getting Together write, "If we don't feel positive after the last transaction, we may dread the next and have more difficulty dealing with it."8 Collective bargain- ing that does not solve problems, but rather creates or perpetuates them, cannot be considered successful just because two reluctant or angry parties signed the last page of the contract. I view collective bargaining as a reel of film. One end is blank waiting to be imprinted. The other is the history of the working relations of the educa- tors, teachers and administrators, union and management. Consequently, bargaining is not an unconnected event; it is part of the reel of labor rela- tions. The bargaining of a contract is tied to the past and helps to structure the future. What happens at the table, how the participants treat each other has conse- quences for the present and for the future. Administrator trashing and union bashing at the table spills over to the schools and the relations outside of the table. This leaves the public with the perception that the callous and inept are lead by the indifferent and incompetent. Public education loses its public in this situation. It is my hope that this book will help to build a knowledge base about unions and collective bargaining, provide some practical suggestions about bargaining, and give the opportunity to learn about bargaining by taking part in a simulation that leads to improved labor relations between educators. As I stated above, signing a contract is not the measure of the success of collective bargaining. The measure of success is whether the relationship in this people-intensive activity of teaching has been strength- ened or harmed.
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