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An Assembly committee Wednesday (November 28, 2007) recommended a bill that would severely restrict the right of educators to bargain their health insurance coverage.
Assembly bill 110 – approved by the Assembly Committee on Labor and Industry – prohibits bargaining over the selection of a health care coverage plan if the employer offers to enroll its employees in the local government employers’ state plan. It also provides that any employer may unilaterally change its health care coverage provider if the benefits remain substantially the same.
Under current law, all matters relating to wages, hours, and conditions of employment – including health care coverage – are subject to collective bargaining.
The bill passed the committee on a party-line 5-3 vote. It now goes to the Republican-controlled Assembly. Even if approved there, however, the bill is not expected to become law because the Democrat-controlled Senate is not likely to take it up.
In a statement presented to the committee, WEAC government relations specialist Diane Craney called the measure "an attack on school district employees and their hard-earned, bargained benefits."
"Educators deserve fair compensation," Craney stated. "There is a perception on the part of some that school district employees do not pay for their health insurance. The truth is that teachers pay for every cent of their benefits. They have sacrificed salary increases in exchange for health insurance for their families."
The statement continues:
"Under the QEO, which unfairly singles out teachers, changes in health insurance costs are balanced with salary adjustments. If benefit costs rise, salaries fall. The total cost to the school district does not change. As a result, teachers, and not taxpayers, have carried the cost of increased health care through salary adjustments ranging from small raises to salary rollbacks. Teachers have the greatest incentive to support plans that provide better benefits at lower costs. Teachers would be harming themselves if they chose expensive plans, unless those plans actually provided greater value for the dollar.
"School districts and other local public employee groups are already allowed to be a part of the state’s local public employers' plan. To be included, the plan is bargained with the local unions. To allow school districts to unilaterally move employees into the state plan, or a substantially similar plan, is an assault on collective bargaining rights.
"Rapidly rising health care costs for everyone have created a health care cost crisis. The solution does not lie in attacks on teachers’ rights to bargain benefits. In fact, WEAC members have agreed to many cost-saving modifications to their health insurance plans, in order to lower costs.
"Finally, WEAC and the WEA Trust are national leaders in promoting health care reform. The New Wisconsin Idea is an innovative four-step plan for tackling the state’s health care cost crisis. These four reforms together would fundamentally alter the state’s health care delivery and financing systems, thereby reducing costs and improving the quality of health care in Wisconsin. If enacted, these reforms would make more affordable health care available to every resident of the state. The New Wisconsin Idea includes:
"Wisconsin’s goal should be good health care for everyone. AB110 does not address the true issue of rising health care costs. WEAC encourages legislators to deal with the underlying health care costs, rather than attempt to take away collective bargaining rights. Good health care, like great schools, benefits everyone."
Posted November 28, 2007