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Illinois School Board Journal
July/August 2005
Art of negotiating faces confrontation
by Fred B. Lifton
Fred B. Lifton is an attorney with Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor, Ltd. in Chicago and a nationally recognized authority on educational bargaining.
For the first time in several years, headlines seem to reflect more ongoing or threatened teacher strikes in Illinois. Is this a blip or has the wheel of history turned significantly so that we again will encounter a period reflecting frequent and bitter labor-management confrontation?
Some indicators point to the latter occurring. These include:
Countering this possible trend is the growing sophistication of both school boards and teacher unions about collective bargaining, and the consequential benefits that many have learned can be derived when there is real cooperation between the parties.
As an example, a district facing severe financial shortages recently was able to negotiate a one-year salary freeze — including step — and a favorable adjustment of employer contributions to health insurance. The voters responded by passing an education fund referendum that had been trashed a few months earlier.
Another example was the negotiation of true performance criteria as a condition for a salary increase. The agreement reached was that if designated student test scores could be raised in a prescribed time frame — and these goals were very carefully defined — all employees would receive a pay increase, but no one would benefit if the objective were not attained.
This is a critical distinction from a "merit pay" program that typically gives a compensation boost to a few employees selected by the administration. The latter is anathema to unions, and its mere proposal is likely to poison a collective bargaining relationship.
While most Illinois school districts now are fully initiated into the negotiations process, the initial foray into teacher bargaining occurred almost 40 years ago and vastly accelerated in the 1970s. Since there was no governing statute at that time (Illinois' collective bargaining statute was enacted in 1983), the issue in many districts was initially one of whether the union would be recognized at all. While the '83 statute essentially ended union recognition strikes, it certainly does not preclude serious confrontation with respect to differences over bargaining issues.
The question now is whether, under the newest stresses, we will be able to successfully continue to use negotiations and the bargaining process as a problem-solving exercise, rather than as an extension of the confrontation model exemplified by the old Saul Alinsky model.
To the discomfort of many elected bodies, Alinsky was an accomplished community activist and a master of packing board meetings with protestors, usually to the considerable embarrassment of elected officials and administrators. All of this was, of course, great fodder for the press. Except for those who actually experienced this confrontation, the Alinsky era remains a fascinating bit of labor history, particularly in the Chicago area.
The current bargaining law requires that negotiations be in "good faith." This means a willingness to listen and possibly to be persuaded. It does not, however, require compromise, "splitting the issue" or even coming to an agreement. Good faith does mandate spending a reasonable amount of time to determine whether an agreement can be reached.
Achieving an actual agreement almost always requires a sincere effort to engage in resolving differences as a problem-solving exercise. Knowledge of the negotiation process, patience, ingenuity and flexibility all play big parts.
This is not an exercise that can be readily diagramed, so beware of pre-packaged solutions however prettily clothed. Every situation has its own dynamics, not the least of which are the personalities of the participants.
The over-arching keys to success in negotiations continue to be credibility and timing. It is not for nothing that we refer to "the art of negotiating."