WCEA is a Model for Collaboration

As local teacher associations throughout the state embrace coordinated statewide bargaining goals, they might want to look to west-central Wisconsin for inspiration.

Local units belonging to the West Central Education Association have been involved in coordinated bargaining since the start of the UniServ system in the early 1970s.

"We're so used to coordinating, it's almost engrained," said Fred Andrist, one of three UniServ directors at WCEA, based in Menomonie.

"We realized early on that to have an impact, we must have coordinated bargaining," added UniServ Director Steve Holzhausen.

The heart of WCEA is a single local association made up of 19 teacher bargaining units and 28 educational support staff bargaining units. In addition, the local associations from Pepin, Fall Creek, and Altoona belong to the WCEA.

Although those three units are not part of the single local, they also coordinate closely with it through the WCEA structure.

Every bargaining unit in the single local has the same constitution and bylaws. Each unit has an executive committee. The president of each unit is a member of the local's board of directors. Membership on the WCEA Board of Directors is almost identical to that of the single local's board. The WCEA Negotiations Committee discusses bargaining strategies for all the units and may make recommendations to local negotiations committees.

When a local unit reaches a tentative agreement with its school board, that agreement must be brought to the single local's board of directors for approval.

"They won't have a settled contract if it is not ratified by the single local," Holzhausen said. In addition, the UniServ president, who is also the single local president, must sign the contract.

The structure "is a tool used to try to control the pattern of settlements," Holzhausen said. "You have to come back to face your peers."

It is important that no single unit accept a contract that lowers standards for peers in surrounding units, said Holzhausen, Andrist and the third WCEA Director Brett Pickerign.

"It causes them to look beyond the borders of their own school district," Andrist said. "They have to realize that what they do affects their colleagues in other school districts."

That bond works two ways. Not only does it pressure a bargaining unit to rise to certain standards, it provides it with strong support for attaining those goals.

"There is a feeling around here that we need each other," said Jim Tripp, chief teacher negotiator in the Glenwood City bargaining unit.

"It's important to know that we are not hanging out there by ourselves. There are things we can do together that we wouldn't have the guts to do by ourselves."

Since the Qualified Economic Offer law was instituted in 1993, WCEA bargaining units have consistently reached contract agreements that exceed the standard QEO total package settlement of 3.8%, Holzhausen said. The bad news is that those settlements have been only marginally above that standard, and the salaries of teachers in WCEA, as in other areas throughout the state, are falling behind inflation.

"There is a recognition that bargaining around the fringes of 3.8% isn't sufficient anymore," Holzhausen said.

For that reason, the 19 teacher bargaining units in the WCEA's single local and the other three WCEA locals have all adopted WEAC's 2001-2003 statewide bargaining goals.

The WEAC Statewide Bargaining Goals Committee and the WEAC Board of Directors are asking local teacher associations to make a commitment to those bargaining goals.

As of this writing, half the local teacher associations in the state have done so.

Locals adopting the statewide bargaining goals agree they will not accept a contract settlement unless it:

• Provides a cost-of-living increase of at least 3.4% per cell.
• Contains no take-backs in existing benefits.
• Includes bargaining for WEA Trust long-term care insurance.
• Includes bargaining for locally developed school quality initiatives.

WEAC Executive Director Michael A. Butera praised WCEA's unified support for the bargaining goals, as well as its collaborative approach to bargaining, calling it "a model for program alignment."

The time has come, Holzhausen and Andrist said, for local associations throughout the state to band together at the bargaining table to challenge the QEO law and school district revenue controls, which have combined to rob schools, staff and children of the resources needed to provide quality education.

Up until recently, they said, inflation has been moderate, health insurance premiums have not been rising sharply, and retirement contributions have been decreasing, so teachers generally haven not been revolting against these laws. And school districts have until recently found ways to cut budgets that did not have direct impacts on the classroom. But all that is changing.

"They are getting really upset now," Andrist said. "The impact of these laws is certainly more obvious now that it ever has been."

The preliminary QEO packages presented by school boards in Prescott, New Richmond and St. Croix Central this spring offered per-cell increases of 0.22%, 0.2% and 0.3%, far from the statewide bargaining goal standard of 3.4%.

Bonnie Weber-Richardson, co-chair of the Elk Mound negotiations committee, said teachers are becoming very upset by the way the law and the school boards are treating them. In 1999-2001, the Elk Mound teachers refused to accept the paltry increases offered by the school board, and the board imposed a QEO contract on the teachers, which made them even more angry and determined.

"Because of the pattern we've seen in the past, we have to see a different pattern in the future," Weber-Richardson said. "Until we make a stand and demand the respect we deserve, we can't expect someone to take us seriously."

Pickerign said the Hudson School District - where the average teacher salary is well below the area's per-capita income - has lost half its staff over the last two years. Some have retired, and many are getting jobs in school districts in Minnesota, where they don't have a QEO or revenue caps.

In response, the Hudson School Board is considering holding a referendum to exceed revenue controls to fund salary increases.

Many school boards in the WCEA want to provide fair salary increases but can't because of the constraints of the QEO and revenue controls, Holzhausen said. And referendums are not realistic in most districts.

That is why, they said, the ultimate solution is modification or repeal of the QEO and revenue cap laws so that school districts can raise the money they need to provide quality education and salary increases that guarantee that every school has the best teachers and support staff possible.

"This is not just an issue of teacher salaries, it is an issue of education quality," Holzhausen said.