Media & the Public are Hearing Our QEO Message

WEAC President Stan Johnson tells the 2002 Spring Conference: We must stop digging ourselves further into a hole.

By rejecting unfair contract offers throughout the state, teachers are making a powerful statement that is being heard by the media and the public, WEAC President Stan Johnson and Collective Bargaining Director Mike McNett told participants Saturday (February 23, 2002) at the WEAC Spring Conference in Lake Geneva.

The media has taken notice that more than 300 school districts are still without a settled contract for 2001-03, and teachers are getting their message out to their communities that the unfair Qualified Economic Offer law and school district revenue controls are to blame, McNett said.

"The media is filled with stories about this," he said.

As local associations work through the media and communicate directly with parents and the community, people are beginning to understand that these laws are unfair and are causing damage to their schools and their children.

Under the QEO law, teachers have no power to negotiate a fair contract at the bargaining table. We have only one option, McNett said: "We have the power of saying no."

At a special session focusing on the statewide collective bargaining situation, representatives from three local associations - Elmbrook, Mequon-Thiensville and Kenosha - gave presentations on how their colleagues are standing up for themselves and refusing to accept contract offers with salary increases below the rate of inflation.

Elmbrook

Elmbrook Education Association President Marge Watzke said members are staunchly behind a wide range of actions designed to increase pressure for a fair contract.

Those actions include:

• Members were surveyed last fall and asked what types of job actions they would be willing to implement.
• Buttons were printed and distributed to members.
• Car signs carrying the message "Great teachers deserve great contracts" were distributed and placed in cars in school parking lots and elsewhere.
• Leaflets were distributed.
• WEAC brought in its ICON program to increase member solidarity and involvement.
• Union Executive Board meetings were moved from the union office to the schools.
• Members wrote post card en masse to school board members, telling them about all the extra work they do beyond that required by the contract.
• Members participated in three rallies, including one in which they formed a line through which school board members had to pass on their way to a meeting.
• Representatives spoke before the school board.
• Additional all-member meetings were held.
• WEAC representatives, including President Stan Johnson and Collective Bargaining Director Mike McNett, came and spoke to members.
• The association created its own Web site at www.ticon.net/~eea/ to increase communication with members and the public.
• The association increased its public relations, including regular calls to reporters and the issuing of press releases. Watzke said she has called local reporters so many times "I now feel they are my friends."
• Many members have volunteered the efforts. "I've been just amazed at the number of people who have stepped up to help," she said.

Mequon-Thiensville

Joan Heithoff, chief negotiator for the Mequon-Thiensville Education Association, said MTEA members have also engaged in a wide variety of activities. The first thing the association did was survey members to find out what actions they wanted to pursue. This guaranteed that the members were behind all union efforts.

• They published a flyer that pointed out that the school board's offer amounted to a salary increase of about $100 per year for the district's most experience teachers.
• Members distributed 10,000 flyers in the community in one day.
• Members have been working to the contract, refusing to participate in voluntary activities not required by the contract.
• The local media - including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Milwaukee television - has extensively covered the issue. Although they haven't always been sympathetic, they are always willing to give the union's side of the story, she said.
• Teachers wore buttons at parent-teacher conferences.
• Members attended school board meetings en masse and peppered the board with questions. When the board refused to answer the questions, members became infuriated.
• The association published a second myths-and-truth flyer.
• The same information was placed in an ad in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
• The MTEA sent a letter to the Journal Sentinel responding to a column that was critical of the union's timing.
• Members picketed outside community events, including school open houses. Heithoff said the reaction from parents was mixed. However, she said she believes their anger is gradually being transferred from the teachers to the school board as they learn more about the facts.
• It is very difficult for some of the teachers to participate in working to the contract, but members are talking individually with those who are reluctant to participate and gradually more and more are coming on board.

Kenosha

The Kenosha Education Association is one of the most active in the state in standing up for a fair 2001-03 contract. President Ellen Kupfer said one of the first things the association did last fall was create green KEA buttons.

• Since then two other buttons - and 8-ball button and a "pull together" button were created.
• Red shirts were printed and distributed to all members, and members dress in red every Wednesday. Kupfer said the red signifies that we see red every time we see the QEO and hear about salary rollbacks, "And we're not going to take it anymore."
• The KEA set up a Web site at www.keanow.com.
• It regularly sends out bulk e-mails to members to keep everyone up to date.
• KEA representatives speak to community groups, including unions and the PTA.
• Members send letters to community groups explaining the issues and seeking support.
• The KEA and members are working to maintain good relationships with the media, including local radio reporters and the local labor newspaper, which grants the KEA space for a weekly column.
• The union publishes a weekly newsletter for building representatives.
• Members have picketed and held a candlelight vigil outside school board meetings and make presentations to the board.
• WEAC helped train members in how to write letters to the editor.
• Utilizing a provision in the law called a voluntary impasse procedure, the KEA asked the school board to agree to allow teachers to strike. Kupfer said more than 80% of members supported the concept of striking if the board were to agree to it. Under law, teachers strikes are illegal, but an exception is made if the board agrees to the strike under as a voluntary impasse procedure.
• More and more members are resigning from voluntary activities.
• The KEA has developed a step-by-step escalating assertive action plan it expects to implement in the near future. "We're standing up for ourselves," Kupfer said.

Johnson closed the session by telling members they have to follow the lead of these locals and refuse to let state officials and school board officials put them further and further behind.

"At times when you find yourself in a hole and you find yourself looking up, remember . the first thing you're going to have to do is stop digging," he said.