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Background
In order for a school to have a great staff, the staff members must be part of the decision-making in how the school is run. And one reason Wisconsin has had such high quality school staff over the years is that they have been involved, through collective bargaining, in decisions about their schools.
Unfortunately, the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) law has taken decision-making power away from teachers, having a negative impact on the quality of our schools.
If Wisconsin is to recruit and retain the best and the brightest educators, it must restore fairness to the state bargaining law. The QEO law must be repealed.
Under the QEO law, school boards control all of the options for setting teacher pay and benefits. School boards can bargain a voluntary settlement, or in the alternative, they can force an interest arbitration or avoid an interest arbitration by imposing a QEO of 3.8 percent. Under the QEO law, teachers cannot petition to take the contract to arbitration and they cannot strike.
If the parties do not reach a voluntary settlement, the school board can impose a QEO, leaving teachers with no legal means to achieve resolution. Moreover, once wages and benefits have been set and QEO is imposed, teachers lack the bargaining leverage to effectively negotiate other compensation or education issues such as class size, preparation time, professional development, or student discipline.
Legislative History
The 1999-2001 state budget contained WEAC-supported modifications to the QEO. The law changed so that costs of educational attainment (lane movements) are no longer counted as part of a QEO. WEAC also fought for and won other modifications to the QEO law as part of the 2001-2003 state budget. These changes protected permissive subjects in bargaining and required the Wisconsin Employment Relations Council to define a timely, bona fide QEO. Governor McCallum, however, vetoed all of the changes.
Another bill, 2001 Senate Bill 200, was introduced to repeal the QEO. The bill received 25 co-sponsors in the Legislature. More than 1,300 WEAC members and supporters attended a public hearing in June 2001 to register in favor of the bill.
Governor Doyle included repeal of the QEO as part of his 2003-2005 and 2005-07 biennial budgets. The Joint Finance Committee called this "non-fiscal policy" and removed it from both budgets.
WEAC Position
WEAC supports repeal of the Qualified Economic Offer law.
Talking Points
. The QEO harms the quality of public education
o Often eliminates collaboration between labor and management, resulting in increased tension in the workplace that interferes with educational quality.
o Discourages those with a superior teaching ability from entering and staying in the education profession by limiting pay.
. The QEO negates collective bargaining
o Allows employers to unilaterally impose a QEO, forcing employees to "take-it or leave-it." Employees only recourse for dispute resolution is to engage in job actions.
o Allows employers to avoid discussion of creative solutions to the challenges facing public schools (such as proposals dealing with class size and teacher preparation).
. The QEO is unfair
o Singles out and penalizes one group of public employees.
o Contains a flawed costing formula that uses projected, rather than actual costs. Consequently, district budgets are often overestimated because they project forward the previous year's staff positions. Turnover savings are ignored and teachers receive less than the QEO promises them.
o Penalizes employees who are planning to retire by giving them a lifetime of reduced pensions.
o Since the QEO law went into effect, the average teacher's salary in Wisconsin has lost 9 percent to inflation and the state has fallen from 15 to 23 in national rankings of teacher salaries.
Additional Information
Contact Deb Sybell at WEAC at 800-362-8034 ext. 227 or by e-mail at sybelld@weac.org with any reactions, comments or questions.
Posted May 4, 2006