Walter H. Warfield is scholar-in-residence at the University of Illinois at Springfield and the retired executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators.
As school districts across the state enter another season of collective bargaining, virtually all face monumentally difficult financial situations. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Rarely do we find people who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions.”
He might well have been speaking to and warning school board members to avoid seemingly easy solutions to the complex process of collective bargaining in the face of the financial crisis faced by public school districts.
Challenging financial situations in Illinois public schools have been common over the years. In the best financial times, the state has fallen short of matching school funding with its rhetoric of world class education. In times of lesser financial resources, the level of school funding has been used to balance the state budget.
What is special about this year is the current financial condition of the state. Its ability to fund the schools has been at an unquestionably historic low. Even with a 66 percent increase in state income tax, no one can be certain that school funding will benefit sufficiently.
This is the most important school year yet, because it is a year before you that, as a school board member, you are responsible. It will be a year of difficult decisions that are yours to make. So let’s review the issue of collective bargaining before talks begin.
Bargaining approachesThe Illinois collective bargaining law became effective in 1984. Since then, the Illinois Education Association and Illinois Federation of Teachers and their respective members have become more sophisticated in their approaches to the process. Fundamentally, this is good.
Prior to the law, pockets of bargaining were growing between school boards and teacher organizations. But tensions were high throughout the state over IEA and IFT organizations approaching school boards with demands to bargain. Some were granted while others were not.
History shows us that in districts where recognition of the unions for purposes of collective bargaining was denied, unions did not take “no” for an answer. They did not go away, and tensions between the union members and school boards intensified. In districts with bargaining, no clear, official rules of engagement were available from which to bargain, due to the lack of a collective bargaining law. Like it or not, the law provided a degree of clarity for bargaining.
Additionally, the growing sophistication of the unions in the bargaining process generated more sophisticated bargainers. The payoff for school boards was dealing with union members more skillful in the full range of the bargaining process, which includes knowing when expectations are to be lowered in lieu of the realities of what is to be gained, and how to close a deal.
The primary realities of collective bargaining are that the board controls the district’s money: it holds the power from which remuneration and the other terms and conditions of employment are made, and it is held accountable for the effectiveness and efficiency of the school district. Unions, on the other hand, approach the school board in a quest for higher compensation, greater input into (and even control over) decisions on how the district will be run, always careful to leave accountability squarely at the feet of the board.
To state it bluntly, the act of bargaining is to skillfully allow teachers to take away from the board only what board members were willing and able to give in the first place.
If any good at all comes from the current financial crisis in the collective bargaining arena, it is that it is clearly easier to bargain with no money in the coffers than with them filled to the brim. Make no mistake, the union will come at the board of education from the perspective that it is their job to advocate for what the employees need, and it is the job of the board to find the resources to meet those needs.
In this current financial climate, it is simply not possible to argue successfully that the money not already available can be obtained. Local and state sources of revenue have dried up, and money from federal sources still comes with strings attached that are wet with the ink from which the money was printed.
So where does the board go from here to prepare for the upcoming collective bargaining season? The good news answer is closely related to an old adage: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
Whether the board decides in cooperation with the local union(s) to engage in a traditional bargaining style or one of the more open styles, it is the responsibility of the board to accept proposals, make proposals, thoughtfully consider proposals, make decisions and enter into agreements. It is the board’s responsibility to say “yes” and to say “no.” This never changes.
The not so good news is that there are no special strategies to be used in times of intensified financial crisis. The better news is that the best strategy to use is to stay close, very close, to the fundamentals.
Keeping it simpleBargaining is really simple. Not easy, but simple. Work to keep it simple.
Listed below are some fundamentals from which to begin. After reviewing these, board members will want to follow up with a more detailed list of strategies with the district’s chief negotiator, bargaining team and the full board of education. But this is an excellent and very necessary place to start.
• Gather a strong management bargaining team consisting of front line, “at the table” people and back line analysts. The team should be committed to problem-solving strategies and intuitively know that all negotiations end.
• Respect the union, its bargaining team and its members. Accept and reject the proposals respectfully and firmly without over rationalization and explanation that will be interpreted as a lecture. Stay focused on the goal of a contract settlement and agreement on the issues that will get you there. Stay off of the natural tendency to gravitate to persons and personalities of those delivering proposals to the bargaining table.
• Understand the first loyalty of the employees is to their union. Such loyalty does not require disloyalty to the board and students. It is simply a matter of priorities.
• Share all non-confidential data with the union. Working off the same data base will protect against unnecessary differences that otherwise arise. Share analysis of the data and analysis procedures. This is not in any attempt to get the union to work off of school board data and analysis for any diabolical reason but rather to stay focused on the issues and goal of reaching a settlement. If the union comes up with a better strategy for data analysis, be flexible and embrace it. Remember that there is power in information and those who use it properly are powerful.
• Use the collective bargaining sessions to really communicate. This involves an emphasis on listening to what is said and a de-emphasis on talking. Employees want to use these bargaining sessions to speak directly to those ultimately in charge from a level table. Take advantage of the opportunity.
• A union speaks through its proposals. Do not waste pre-bargaining energies trying to guess at what the union might want. Wait for the proposal.
• Analyze the union’s first proposal to identify its priorities. Listen and watch for clues that will tell you their importance to the union.
• Next, analyze the proposals from the board’s perspective of acceptability.
• A proposal can be one which contributes to the overall good of the school. If so, accept it.
• A proposal can be one that if modified can contribute to the overall good of the school. If so, modify it and present it as an acceptable counter proposal.
• A proposal can be one which is neutral to the overall good of the school. If so, accept it.
• A proposal can be one that if modified can be neutral for the overall good of the school. If so, modify it and present it as an acceptable counter proposal.
• A proposal can be negative and un-modifiable. If so, reject it.
• Keep the list of board proposals limited to only the most important and those you expect to see in the new contract. The union’s initial proposal traditionally includes an uncensored list of demands consisting of most everything union members want. This varies significantly from the list of what they need and even more so from what they expect to get. There is great credibility to be gained by the board proposal containing only those items of particular importance to the board. Sophisticated unions and bargainers will recognize and respect this approach.
• Never trade money for contract language. This is a natural tendency to do when money is in short supply and the union is pushing for concessions.
• Never trade money for language. This item is simply too important to list only once. The money you have today will sooner or later be spent one time. That is why you have it. But the cost of contract language is paid for with varying degrees of union input processes, control and money. For this you will pay again and again.
• Be forgiving of mistakes made by the union and be quick to own up to mistakes you might make.
• Trust the process and remain patient. Agreements cannot be rushed. Bargaining is a process that is dependent on saying the right thing at the right time in the right way. Untimely concessions and demands made too soon or too late in the process will delay reaching contract agreement.
• Never fear the union. Never attempt to placate the union. Never expect that you can give the union enough to satisfy it completely. If that were the case, the union would have no reason for being. Never make a concession without getting something for it.
• Always let the union and its members save face. In short, the art of bargaining is allowing the union to take from the board what the board was willing to give anyway. This can be easily achieved by practicing these simple strategies:
• Never give the union anything. Let them take it.
• Never offer to give the union anything it did not ask for. Plant the seed and wait for them to ask for it, and then let them take it.
• Never demand the union accept the board’s final proposal. Close the collective bargaining process by accepting the last proposal of the union.
• Lose with dignity.
• Remember that a board is always bargaining two contracts: the current one, and the next one. Unions are living social organisms with an institutional memory. How the board conducts itself during this bargaining season sets the tone for the next. Giving the union too much this time will set the union’s tone for high expectations of too much the next time. Giving too little when more is feasible this time, without doing harm to the school district, will only serve to begin the process next time on an unnecessary negative tone.
• Never make promises for what will happen in the next contract to be negotiated. This is a common mistake in times of financially stressed bargaining.
• Remember that successful bargaining is the art of compromise. Compromise is not weakness. Compromise is not capitulation. Compromise is an integral part of collective bargaining as it is in everyday life that shows respect for those in other positions.
Success with the collective bargaining process is a very important part of being a successful school board member. It is easy to imagine Dr. King saying that being a school board member requires someone willing to engage in hard, solid thinking, someone capable of resisting the common urge for easy answers and half-baked solutions, and someone acting for the sole purpose of improving the educational system to benefit students.
ReferencesEdward E. Eiler, “Follow these golden rules and negotiate a solid labor contract,” American School Board Journal, August 1989 /Vol. 176 No.8
Edward C. Keonig, “When school boards break the rules,” National Association of Educational Negotiators, March 1986
Ronald R. Booth, “Collective Bargaining: Ready to play by the rules,” The Illinois School Board Journal, January/February 2002
Frederick M. Hess and Martin R. West, “A Better Bargain: Overhauling Teacher Collective Bargaining for the 21st Century,” Harvard University