Patience, Persistence, Pressure Pay Off in Waupaca

By Terry Lawler
Pat Phair, president of the Waupaca Teachers Association, has a formula for negotiation success. It’s a blend of patience, persistence and pressure.

“We were QEO’d in our previous contract (2001-2003) with virtually no increases in salary and $100 on the base. The only good thing about it was the board couldn’t change our existing health care,” Phair said.

Mark Polebitski

Pat Phair

Despite falling victim to the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) law in December of 2002, Waupaca teachers last fall successfully rebounded, negotiating a contract that includes a 4.47% per-cell salary increase in the first year and 4.5% in the second. In addition, the only health care change was something that both sides wanted – and it provided money for the salary schedule. “Our drug card changed from a $2 co-pay, an expensive dinosaur of a plan, to a $0-$10-$20 CO-pay which freed up $70,000,” Phair said.

Waupaca teachers knew in 2002 that the road to a better contract would require a lot of work.

“Every week we did something different, and we never let up for one minute for at least 30 weeks,” said Mark Polebitski, a computer science teacher for 19 years and the teachers’ chief negotiator.

In February 2003, the Waupaca teachers staged a rally that captured the attention of the community, Phair said.

“Our raises were really small – ranging from a dollar and change to two dollars and change per check. More than 120 of our teachers spent their raises at local grocery stores. Our rally started at the city’s food bank and progressed through town to the board room. There, at a board meeting, teachers held up the few items they were able to purchase with their raises.”

This dramatized in a very concrete way how small the salary increases were. The purchased items were then donated to the food bank. Green Bay TV stations and the Appleton Post-Crescent covered the event.

Phair said the community “looked unfavorably” at the teachers’ demands at first. To counter this, the 221-member WTA used 10 nearby districts as comparables, revealing that at all levels Waupaca was at or near the bottom. Ten years earlier, Waupaca teachers had been at the top. The teachers then purchased an ad in the local paper to get this information to the public.

“We also showed people that our starting salary was in the bottom 5% state-wide,” Phair said.

Veteran teachers who had lived many years in Waupaca and earned the public’s respect also informally spread the word. “The comparisons worked,” Phair said, “and the board was finding it could not attract new, quality teachers to our schools.”

Letter-writing campaigns to the local paper also helped. “Soon, other people besides teachers were sending in letters, and community leaders were questioning the board,” Polebitski said.

“Needless to say, the board did not want to go through all of that again (in 2003),” Phair said.

Still, “nothing of substance” happened in negotiations last summer, and the board appeared to be stalling.

“We finally met in October at which time we found the board had done its own investigating,” Phair said.

“The board had a huge Fund 10 balance,” Polebitski said, and the district received more money from the state than it had anticipated.

“They told us that they wanted to take us to the middle of the comparables in the first year and into the top half in the second,” Phair said.

Consequently, the WTA accepted the initial salary offer made by the board.

“We were recording the closed session that night and I kept asking for and getting assurances that no matter what else was negotiated in this contract, the salary offer would not change,” Polebitski said.

“We had made it clear to the board,” Phair added, “that in these negotiations we would not talk about monetary issues except salary, and when the salary package was settled, we’d move on.”

Phair and Polebitski have a great deal of respect for each other’s skills in negotiations.

“Mark is the ultimate numbers man,” Phair said.

“Negotiators have to know how much money is coming into the district and where it’s coming from,” Polebitski said. “They also have to be tough.

“Pat asks the hard questions,” Polebitski added. “The board respects him. Pat has also been influential in making Waupaca a progressive community. Pat’s on the City Council and has been able to get the school board and the City Council to work together for the first time in years.”

Polebitski believes that “this is going to be the best contract in our area.” His advice for other locals that are experiencing difficulties is simple:

“Never give up.”

Resource page on collective bargaining

Posted March 19, 2004