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By Terry Lawler
"Forget the QEO, and let’s bargain a contract.”
When the Mount Horeb School Board and Mount Horeb
Education Association decided to take that basic approach to negotiations
this summer, the results were quick and impressive.
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Mount Horeb Education Association negotiator Will Janssen, MHEA President Patty Schlafer (center) and Southwest Education Association UniServ Director Joyce Bos helped bargain a 2003-05 contract that serves as a model for other local associations throughout the state. |
The two sides reached agreement this fall on a contract
that provides salary increases of 3% per cell and makes no changes to
the employee health plan. The contract terms exceed WEAC’s Statewide
Bargaining Goals, and school board members have said they are pleased
with the results.
It’s a contract that WEAC negotiations specialist
Greg Spring said will “serve as a lighthouse settlement for others
in the area and around the state.”
Mount Horeb, a small-town local with 167 members, is in many ways representative
of many WEAC local associations.
Such an outcome for 2003-05 seemed unlikely after
an acrimonious bargain for 2001-03 that included months of job actions
by Mount Horeb teachers. Teachers “wore informative buttons, held
gatherings before school board meetings and voiced their concerns to
board members at those meetings,” said Will Janssen, a music teacher
at Mount Horeb High School and lead negotiator for MHEA. That contract
was finally settled in July 2002, one year after the previous contract
had expired.
MHEA braced itself for another long ordeal when new
contract talks began earlier this year.
But the board surprised the teachers by taking a much
more reasonable approach this time around, basically setting aside the
provisions of the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) law and opting instead
to engage in meaningful bargaining.
Spring applauded the district’s attitude “that
QEO-type settlements do nothing to improve the educational system.”
“The board made a complete package offer –
for the first time in a long time – in mid-June,” Janssen
said. “We countered about two weeks later, and the board and MHEA
reached agreement three weeks after that.” The contract was ratified
by the teachers on August 26 and by the board on September 2.
The quick settlement “has left everyone here
with a good taste in their mouths,” Janssen said.
One of the most important facets of MHEA’s counter-offer
was asking for a 3% raise per cell. That means each employee receives
a 3% salary increase even if they do not move up the salary schedule
for experience or advanced credits.
Joyce Bos, UniServ director for the South West Education
Association (SWEA), said this was a change for the the Mount Horeb board,
which usually talks in terms of “total package dollars,” an
approach that can be deceiving in terms of how it portrays salary increases.
Mike McNett, WEAC’s collective bargaining director,
said per-cell increases show the actual value of the salary increase
and “avoids the deceiving nonsense of QEO costing, which includes
‘phantom’ teachers, insurance hikes, and experience steps
that were already promised.”
Furthermore, the teachers’ health plan remains
unchanged. And if insurance increases fall below the anticipated rises
in the second year of the contract, the excess will go into the salary
schedule.
Also important to Janssen is language regarding PI
34, the state’s new teacher licensing law.
“We looked at the board policies regarding mentoring,
adopted some of their proposals and added to it,” he said. As a
result, teacher mentors are guaranteed pay for their work, and dialogues
between mentors and new teachers are confidential.
The mentoring portion of the package was added as
an addendum rather than being included as part of the main contract.
“We’ll have two years to work with our teachers
and the board on the mentoring program,” said MHEA President Patty
Schlafer. “MHEA will be very involved in scrutinizing the program
and making it more of a negotiable issue for the next contract.”
Janssen and Schlafer are very pleased that flex time
has been implemented in the district. “We have an eight hour school
day, but teachers will be able to choose their starting and ending times
from a staggered schedule,” Janssen said. Bos said that “flex
time shows respect for the Mount Horeb teachers’ professionalism.”
Janssen and Schlafer believe that keeping in touch
with the teachers was a critical factor during negotiations.
“Our teachers are really pleased with the package
and the MHEA’s communication with them along the way,” Schlafer
said.
“Our members received the complete language changes
including history and rationale one week before they took the ratification
vote,” Janssen added.
Evidently, the board was pleased with MHEA also. “One
board member commented that the MHEA requests were realistic, given
the financial situation, and that the language requests were reasonable,”
Janssen said.
Bos gives Janssen much of the credit for MHEA’s
success. “Will is very organized, structured and prepared. He always
speaks clearly and calmly,” she said.
Janssen is already looking to the future. “We
want to restructure our salary schedule,” he said.
Perhaps what pleases Janssen the most are the “intangibles”
that come with a fair contract settlement. “Our working atmosphere
in the district is incredibly positive. Conflicts in negotiations impact
the classroom. But you can see and sense in our schools the impact this
new contract has had,” he said.
He feels that during the discussions between MHEA
and the Mount Horeb board “each side treated the other as equals.”
Bos and McNett said the Mount Horeb settlement serves
as a model for other locals in the SWEA and in the rest of the state.
McNett said it not only exceeds the cost-of-living increase, but begins
to recapture some of the money lost to inflation since the inception
of the QEO in 1993.
“It demonstrates that the WEAC bargaining goals can be achieved,” McNett said. “And it shows that member involvement and high expectations at the table are factors that lead to successful settlements.”
Posted October 24, 2003