QEO Blocks Innovation, Governor's Panel Told

WEAC Collective Bargaining Director Mike McNett (far right) describes the negative impact of 10 years of the Qualified Economic Offer law on teachers and schools. He delivered his presentation to a subcommittee of the Governor's Task Force on Educational Excellence.

The state's restrictive collective bargaining law for teachers places a major roadblock in the path toward school improvement, a state panel was told Tuesday (January 20, 2004).

The Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) law severely weakens the collective bargaining process and shuts down opportunities for teachers to effectively work with school officials on maintaining and improving Wisconsin's great schools, WEAC Collective Bargaining Director Mike McNett told the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Subcommittee of the Governor's Task Force on Educational Excellence. The panels are developing recommendations for the governor as part of a package of school finance reforms.

McNett presented a number of reasons why the QEO law must be repealed if public education is going to move forward in Wisconsin. Among them:

• Since the QEO law went into effect in 1993, Wisconsin teacher salaries have fallen from 15th to 22nd in the nation and are now 6% below the national average.
• Under the QEO, Wisconsin teacher salaries have lost 7% to inflation. Per-capita income in Wisconsin has increased at twice the rate of teacher pay.
• The law has led to an increase in teacher turnover, with "an incredible" 14.4% of the state's teaching staff leaving their jobs last year alone.
• The law creates an uneven playing field, giving school boards all the power at the bargaining table.
• The law strips teachers of the right to strike and access to binding arbitration, leaving them virtually powerless to negotiate a fair contract.
• The law is misleading to the public and confusing to teachers and school boards, with standards that are unfair and rules that are unclear.
• The law has demoralized the state's teaching staff and led to many job actions.
• The QEO does not foster a positive learning environment. It inhibits cooperation and shared decision-making and effectively bars teachers from applying their expertise to solving problems and implementing innovative strategies.

Teachers are one of the most significant factors in student learning, and Wisconsin has one of the best teaching staffs in the country, McNett said, as evidenced in part by the fact that Wisconsin students consistently score among the best in the country on standardized tests and have the highest graduation rate in the nation.

McNett said the QEO law makes it difficult to implement provisions of the state's new teacher licensing law, known as PI 34. This law - which WEAC supports - changes the way teachers earn and renew their licenses. It emphasizes professional development and mentoring programs.

Implementing PI 34 "is going to require a lot of changes, joint planning and cooperation," McNett said. The QEO law, however, creates an environment that makes it difficult to negotiate anything, including innovative language for implementing such provisions, he said.

"If this law (PI 34) is really going to work, it will require changes in wages, hours and conditions of employment," which must be negotiated in good faith at the bargaining table, McNett said.

The same applies to implementation of provisions of the massive new federal education law called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (often misleadingly referred to as the "No Child Left Behind" law). The ESEA's provisions - which include possibly restructuring schools, and realigning school years and school days - have a direct impact on the collective bargaining issues of wages, hours and working conditions. Unless they are worked out collaboratively at the bargaining table, the law will never lead to progress, McNett said, adding that the QEO makes such negotiation unlikely.

McNett urged the panel to consider options that restore fair collective bargaining and provide dispute resolution measures, such as binding arbitration.

"The current law is bad public policy," McNett said. "It limits the ability to make needed changes and to address new issues."

In addition, McNett said the QEO law also brings with it the distraction of labor unrest in our schools and low morale among teachers and education support professionals.

"All this has a negative impact on children and our future," he said.

The panel also heard from Judy Neumann, executive director of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Committee, who described the QEO law as "very, very rigid."

"It is very unusual in labor law to have this kind of rigidity," she said. The QEO, she said, "does make it very difficult to get creativity at the bargaining table."

Neumann encouraged the panel to move toward a process that "lets collective bargaining happen."

Resource page on the QEO law

Posted January 22, 2004