Legislature Rejects Attack on Health Care Bargaining Rights
Thanks to thousands of phone calls and e-mails from WEAC members to legislative
leaders, the Legislature has preserved school employees bargaining rights.
Health care bargaining rights came under attack after the Assembly
adopted a budget provision that gave school districts the power to unilaterally
select health insurance carriers for employees. The Senate version of
the budget did not contain changes to health care bargaining rights.
The State Budget Conference Committee, created to settle differences
between the two houses, rejected the Assembly attack on bargaining.
Thousands of WEAC members had e-mailed and phoned Assembly Republicans
on the conference committee asking them to retreat from the attack on
health care bargaining rights.
"The budget is a major victory for WEAC members and their right
to collectively bargain over health insurance-related decisions,"
WEAC President Stan Johnson said
The Assembly version of the budget would have also:
- Revised the Qualified Economic Offer law so that a school district
would only have to provide "substantially similar" benefits
to teachers from one contract to the next. It would have been up to
the State Commissioner of Insurance, a Republican appointee, to determine
what constituted "substantially similar" benefits. Under
current QEO law, an employer must maintain both the existing fringe
benefits package and the district's percentage contribution effort
to that package.
- Required school districts to solicit sealed bids for the provision
of group health insurance and encouraged them to put their employees
in the state insurance pool rather than continuing coverage under
one of the WEA Insurance Trust group health plans.