Patience, Hard Work Rewarded in Union Grove
The Union Grove bargaining team consists of (left to right) Rachel Koehnke,
Neil Welch, Krista Jones, Laurie Brown and Southern Lakes United Educators
Director Ken Krause. (Photo by Terry Lawler.)
For Ken Krause, it didn’t look like an auspicious beginning. “I
had just come on as an executive director for SLUE (Southern Lakes United
Educators), and I was with the negotiation team for the K-8 teachers of
Union Grove for a bargaining session with their board.” Only one of
the two board negotiators showed up. A few days later, the board sent word
that their two negotiators were no longer negotiating.
| Front Lines
by
Terry Lawler |
Krista Jones, the union’s chief negotiator and a 1st-grade teacher,
said, “Six weeks later, two new board members took over negotiations,
but the first sessions were unproductive. All they kept saying was ‘No,
no, no’ to everything we proposed.”
But Neil Welch, a 4th-grade teacher on the team, wasn’t daunted.
“I just made it clear to the board that we weren’t going to
give up. We were going to hang in there until we got a good contract.”
Over the next 14 months, everyone did “hang in.” In August
of 2002, the teachers and board ratified a contract that achieves the
statewide bargaining goals set by WEAC, a remarkable achievement in an
era of the Qualified Economic Offer law, school district revenue caps,
and budget deficits.
All the team members agree that the formula for getting the job done
was equal parts of trust, patience and respect.
“We got a lot of support from our membership,” Jones said.
According to Rachel Koehnke, a K-8 librarian, “We got a lot of language
settled early in the process.” However, wages and insurance were
the blocks to a settlement. Welch recalled, “Some members told me
that all we were doing was gathering ‘a lot of little nuts.’
I told them that those little nuts might be needed to trade for something
big down the line.”
Laurie Brown, a kindergarten teacher, remembered, “Our members asked
us if we held on could we get something substantial. We told them ‘yes’
and they stood behind us.”
“Our board knows we have really good people in this district,”
Welch said. “We told them that we’re on the same team, that
the QEO (Qualified Economic Offer law) is our mutual enemy.”
The negotiation sessions were marked by civility and productive discussion.
“The board is well-educated and very much in tune with the needs
of our students,” Krause said. “Both sides acted in a very professional
manner.”
Koehnke agreed. “Our sessions were informal.”
“We have good rapport with the board,” Welch said. No one,
according to the team, was left bitter or hurt by the negotiation process.
Keeping in touch with the 38 educators in the bargaining unit was important
to the team.
“We polled our staff often,” Koehnke said. “If the team
was ever in disagreement about something, we took the issue to the membership.
Whatever they decided became our goal.”
Brown was glad that all staff members could be contacted quickly, but
“communication will be better starting next year because we’re
all going to be in one new building.”
The most important factor in finally settling the contract was “using
actual costing” last summer when bargaining salary and benefits,
Jones said.
“We waited to see who was retiring or leaving the district. Armed
with this information, we were able to show the board exactly what our
proposals were going to cost.”
The contract was settled soon after. Ratification was completed on the
first day of school last fall, and retroactive checks came during September.
The team is justifiably proud of the final contract.
“It turns out we didn’t have to trade any of those ‘nuts,’
” Welch said.
Their raises are 3.7% per cell in the first year and 3.3% in the second
(The statewide goals call for an average of 3.4% each year). Health care
remains the same, with no “take backs.”
The teachers will receive $45 for every unused sick day over 120, paid
at the end of the school year. The teachers also bargained improved early
retirement language.
With another contract to be negotiated soon, the team is well aware of
the problems its district faces.
“Our superintendent, Giles Williams, helped to get things done by
consulting with the board,” Welch said. “Now he’s making
budget cuts, and it’s killing him.”
Like districts all over the state, Union Grove is dealing with the problem
of increased costs and not enough funding. Welch said it’s time to
find alternate ways to fund schools.
Welch is the only negotiator who plans to return to the bargaining table,
although a couple of other team members are “thinking about it.”
Regardless of what lies ahead, the Union Grove team and the teachers
they represent have shown the rest of the state that cooperation, respect
and hard work from both sides of the bargaining table can accomplish great
things.
Posted January 31, 2003