Waukesha Teachers, District Find Solution Through Consensus

After years of banging their heads against the wall, teachers and school officials in Waukesha decided to give the wall a break.

Tri-Wauk UniServ Director Ellen Mac Farlane, Education Association of Waukesha chief negotiator Ed Stewart (center) and District Business Director Bob Buchholtz believe consensus bargaining has benefitted teachers, students and the community.

Not only did the wall benefit, so did they. And so did the children in Waukesha schools, according to union and school district officials.

“We are willing to work together to solve each other’s problems,” said Ed Stewart, chief negotiator for the Education Association of Waukesha. “There is now more discussion in a problem-solving mode than there is confrontation.”

It’s called consensus bargaining, and although it’s not necessarily for everyone, it has worked wonders in Waukesha.

“We illustrated there’s a better way to do it,” said Bob Buchholtz, the district’s director of business services.

'We had had enough'

The process began in 1993, when, as Stewart puts it, “we reached the point where we had had enough.” The administration was willing to try consensus, “and it just snowballed from there.”

Each side removed its “middle man” – the district’s lawyer and the union’s UniServ director – from direct negotiating.

A Better Way

“We were able to sit down with one another and be reasonable,” Stewart said.

The process was informal the first two bargains, then in 1996 negotiators from both sides were formally trained by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. Each side agreed to openly share information and to jointly confront problems. Joint subcommittees were appointed to study issues, engage in open discussions, and devise compromise solutions to differences.

Subcommittees specialized in such areas as salary, retirement, workload, site-based management, president release time, transfers and personal days.

“Instead of getting stuck on an issue, we would have a subcommittee work it out,” Buchholtz said. “It just takes all that anxiety away.”

Process involves more people

Not only does the committee process help resolve issues, it gives more people an opportunity to be involved in crafting solutions.

Under the old system, neither side felt a need to explain its positions, said Ellen Mac Farlane, director of the Tri-Wauk UniServ Council.

“Now,” she said, “if either side has to say no you understand why they had to say no.”

When all is said and done, the two sides don’t come away from the bargaining table with hard feelings, they come away with feelings of accomplishment, Stewart and Buchholtz said.

The most recent two-year contract, covering the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 school years, is a good example. It is embraced by both sides and represents substantial change.

The contract shortens the salary schedule to allow new teachers to start at a higher level and reach the top sooner. It also increases the maximum salary.

Incentives to earn professional credits

Most importantly, it provides strong financial incentives for teachers to earn professional credits. Advancement is more dependent on education and less on years of experience, Stewart said. Teachers who don’t earn the required number of credits don’t advance beyond a certain point on the schedule.

“This schedule gives new people the chance to jump further faster,” Buchholtz said.

The contract falls within the parameters of the Qualified Economic Offer law, with an official salary and benefit increase calculated at 3.8% in each year of the contract. But the district agreed to use actual dollars for costing rather than employ the often criticized “cast-forward” method of costing which would make less money available for salary increases.

The bottom line is many teachers will see salary increases larger than could have been achieved through traditional bargaining.

The district’s agreement to use actual costing, Buchholtz said, “goes back to the good working relationship we’ve had with the association over the last few years.”

“There is a high degree of confidence and trust.”

Although consensus bargaining is more time-consuming, both sides say it’s well worth the effort.

“Teachers, administrators and school board members are working together to make sure teachers are well-trained and fairly compensated,” Mac Farlane said. “In the end, the children are the ones who benefit the most.”