Kenosha Solidarity Paves the Way

This is the first in a series of articles about successful settlements of teacher and education support professional contracts for 2003-05.

By Terry Lawler

For 15 months, Kenosha teachers fought to obtain a fair contract for themselves for 2001-2003. Negotiations were complicated by the departure of then-Kenosha Superintendent Michael Johnson.

By the autumn of 2001, Kenosha teachers started to withhold services for which they were not compensated. School staff congregated in parking lots before and after the teacher work day to publicly display their dissatisfaction with the lack of progress in negotiations.

Emotions ran high in the community as teachers came under fire for working to contract, and students and parents reacted to the loss of all the “extra” services that were no longer available. But eight long years of the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) and the subsequent erosion of their salaries and benefits toughened the teachers’ resolve. That contract was eventually settled in the spring of 2002.

One year later, the Kenosha Education Association and the Kenosha School Board started negotiations for 2003-2005. After six weeks and about a half-dozen bargaining sessions, Kenosha teachers bargained a contract that WEAC holds up as a model for all other districts in the state. What happened to cause this turnaround in the negotiation process? OnWEAC recently sat down with Matt Kranich, KEA president, who gave his perspective on the changes in the bargaining climate in Kenosha and why he feels the 2003-2005 contract was settled so quickly.

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In what seems to be an understatement, Matt Kranich looks back on the 2001-’03 bargaining process as “a learning experience” for everyone concerned.

“The job actions were crucial to not only the settlement of the first contract, but also the relative ease of obtaining the current one,” Kranich said. “Teachers participated in the job actions when they caught on to the fundamental problems we faced. What helped was the spreading of a trade union mentality brought in by our new executive director, Bob Baxter, and the increased communication we kept with our membership. Bob was definitely the catalyst for change in Kenosha. Without Bob and governance that supports this mentality, it is possible that very little would have changed.”

“After the settlement of the 2001-’03 contract, the teachers in the KEA were able to take a new approach to bargaining. We didn’t feel as helpless as we had in the past, and we realized we had the ability to obtain a fair salary and benefit package.” ---------- Matt Kranich

The KEA emphasized that the status quo in the Kenosha Unified School District was leading to an increased number of teachers without regular certification being hired.

“It’s all about upholding the profession, and when you defend the profession by improving salary, benefits and working conditions for teachers, you are raising the quality of instruction in the classroom,” Kranich said. “Too often teachers go soft and forget that what is best for teachers is also best for kids.”

Still, public pressure alone was not enough to sway the board to negotiate in good faith. Kranich believes that the hard work of the KEA officers and the teachers’ determination to continue withholding services turned the tide. The results of that settlement went far beyond just the words on the contract, according to Kranich.

“After the settlement of the 2001-’03 contract, the teachers in the KEA were able to take a new approach to bargaining. We didn’t feel as helpless as we had in the past, and we realized we had the ability to obtain a fair salary and benefit package. In short, we felt we had tipped the scales toward making the KEA, the administration and the board equal partners. We gained respect.”

That newly established respect and sense of partnership emboldened Kranich and the rest of the KEA team when negotiations started last spring.

“A personal goal for many,” Kranich said, “was to address what we called the elementary prep time crisis. We wanted decent prep time for all teachers, but especially the elementary teachers who had far less prep time than others. We also made other things clear. We expected better than cost-of-living raises in the salary schedule and no change in our health benefits.”

The results of the KEA’s bargaining positions are impressive.

“Elementary prep time, on the average, has nearly tripled, from 140 minutes a week to 350. Salary raises are 2.7% for each of the two years of the current contract. Under our previous contract, out-of-pocket co-payments for insurance totaled $120 for single plans and $560 for families. Under our current contract, the district has eliminated these co-payments and picked up 100% of the premiums. For family plan members, this equates to another 1% to 2% raise in their salaries. We also compressed the salary schedule, dropping one step off the schedule in each year. This makes it possible for a teacher to reach the top of the schedule in 13 years, not 15.”

When the 2003-’04 school district budget was hung up because of the wait for action on the state budget, “the KEA informed its membership, the administration and the school board that it would strongly oppose any elimination of positions while at the same time we provided them with a balanced budget proposal. We stood our ground until Governor Doyle’s budget, maintaining full funding for schools, went into effect. Even prior to the Senate override attempt of Doyle’s budget, the KUSD administration withdrew its proposal to eliminate $2.11 million in KEA-represented positions and followed a budget very close to what the KEA presented. This wasn’t easy for them to do, but they knew we were correct.”
Kranich gives much credit to KEA Executive Director Baxter for his leadership in negotiations.

“Bob is our only spokesperson during negotiations and he created a respectful, sincere effort to bargain in good faith on both sides of the table.” In fact, Kranich has nominated Baxter and the KEA teaching membership for the Paul Bierbrauer Award, given by WEAC for bargaining excellence, for their hard work over the four years of contract settlements covering 2001-2005.

Kranich was recently appointed co-chair of the WEAC Bargaining Goals Committee.

“I feel I was appointed to this position because I could bring the Kenosha story to the rest of the state,” he said. "As co-chair, my goal will be to focus on the actions required to achieve whatever goals we set," he said, adding: "Setting goals is one thing, but achieving them is another."

Kranich insists that things turned around in Kenosha primarily because of the lessons learned from the teachers’ job actions.

“Eight years of unfair settlements stopped because teachers said if we didn’t get a fair settlement, we were going to continue to withhold services and be right back where we were, and nobody wanted that.”

Posted September 30, 2003