| SEARCH OnWEAC |
|---|
UPDATE: On May 4, 2006, the Bristol Education Association and school board reached a tentative contract agreement.
By Terry Lawler
Members of the Bristol Education Association are simply not settling for the school board’s “just say no” approach to bargaining.
Historically, the Bristol School Board does very little negotiating, according to Ron Rachwal, a 20-year veteran and a current negotiator, and current negotiations are no different.
 Ron Rachwal |
 Meighan McKeown |
 Jordan Gardina |
 Rick Moore |
“What we usually hear is, ‘This is what we’re offering; take it or leave it.’ Also, the board never wants to consider looking at language changes,” he said.
Meighan McKeown, a special education teacher, agrees. “Negotiations in this district have not been very productive, if they could be described as negotiations at all,” she said.
“The board looks at economics and that’s it,” Rachwal said. “The thing is, the district is not hurting for money.” Bristol school maintains a robust reserve fund of $2 million. Bristol teachers believe that the board can afford to pays its teachers a competitive wage and maintain health benefits.
With nothing settled and the prospect of productive negotiating looking dim, Bristol teachers have become proactive. The teachers sent a two-page letter to parents detailing their concerns. In that letter the teachers called attention to the low pay for teachers and high pay for administration. They also encouraged parents to contact school board members and attend the February school board meeting.
At that meeting, teachers gave attendees a handout that was subsequently read by McKeown to the board during the meeting. The handout repeated information contained in the letter. It also described the board’s attack on the retirement plan, proposed changes in the insurance plan which would result in higher out-of-pocket costs for the teachers, and the board’s dismal salary offer. The handout also revealed that the teachers are asking for a 4% per cell salary increase for each of the two years of the contract, which would make them “the third-lowest paid teachers at mid-schedule and the fourth-lowest paid teachers at the schedule maximum” in Kenosha County.
The result of the letter and the handout was a threatening letter sent by the board’s attorney to Rick Moore, executive director of Southern Lakes United Educators. The letter threatens a prohibited practice suit if there is any more of this “recurring conduct.”
Moore’s response was equally strong. Express-sing “disappointment” with the board’s stance which is “widening the distance” between the district and the teachers, Moore wrote he “wholeheartedly supports” what the teachers have done “and will continue to do so.”
Moore’s letter goes on to note Bristol’s “significant turnover in recent years” and says that if “maintaining a highly qualified teaching staff is no longer a goal” of the board, that “the association can certainly so inform the community of that determination.”
Making its own rules
Front Lines by Terry Lawler |
Part of the problem is that the board “makes its own rules for negotiations, throwing out anything they don’t want,” Rachwal said. Another part, he said, is “We’re not negotiating (face to face) with the board, we’re negotiating with their attorney.” That attorney is Marion Smith, a member of the Milwaukee firm Michael Best & Friedrich. Smith’s tactic seems to be to simply gainsay any proposal made by the teachers.
“There’s no discussion, simply ‘no’,” McKeown said.
In the course of current negotiations, the board got “hung up” on the district’s voluntary early retirement plan, according to negotiators. “The board wants to slash the plan by half,” said 4th-grade teacher Jordan Gardina.
When the teachers finally demanded that the salary schedule be discussed, the board offered $800 per teacher across the board. “That’s a typical offer,” Rachwal said. “We’ve averaged ¼% per cell increase over the last four years.”
The teachers and the board started mediation in November, and McKeown said teachers are optimistic that will move negotiations forward, but they plan to remain proactive.
Members credit Mark Simons, a WEAC negotiations specialist out of Brookfield, for helping them get better organized and improving communications. Simons is quick to point out where the credit truly lies.
“I have been working with them since last August,” he said, “and the important thing is they have done all the ‘heavy lifting’ in putting their plan into action. They spend a lot of time organizing their members. They’ve proved that organizing is important for every local, big or small.”
Posted March 24, 2006