Challenging the QEO
Members discuss, vote on possible joint action
Local associations throughout the state are engaging in some soul-searching
while grappling with the growing problems posed by the state’s
collective bargaining law.
The WEAC Bargaining Goals Committee has asked locals to present a proposed
resolution to membership for a vote in February.
Basically, the resolution spells out the devastating impact of the
“Qualified Economic Offer” on teacher salaries in Wisconsin
and represents a commitment by locals to work to change the law.
“Local association leaders throughout the state have told me they
want to work together on a coordinated strategy for restoring fairness
and equity to the bargaining table,” WEAC President Terry Craney
said. “Every teacher in Wisconsin is being hurt by this law, and
it is affecting the quality of education throughout the state. It is
not only hurting teachers and support staff, it is — in combination
with the state-imposed school revenue caps — hurting kids. WEAC
members want to join hands to do something to stop this degradation.”
Local associations that approve the resolution vow to seek a settlement
“consistent with fair collective bargaining and in line with the
cost of living.” Under the collective bargaining law passed in
1993, every local teacher contract is up for renewal July 1, 1997. Having
every local on the same bargaining schedule provides a unique opportunity
for members to join together in a unified bargaining strategy.
Under the schedule mapped out by the Bargaining Goals Committee:
- Locals will conduct referendums on the proposed resolution in February.
- In March, the Statewide Bargaining Goals Committee will evaluate
the results of the referendums and adopt a statewide strategy consistent
with those results and submit the strategy to UniServ Councils for
approval.
- Beginning in April, all bargaining units will begin negotiations
with their school boards.
- In August, negotiators will meet at the WEAC Summer Conference to
assess bargaining progress and map future strategy.
- In September, the Bargaining Goals Committee will recommend strategy
for impasse resolution for unsettled contracts.
Local negotiators are encouraged to develop initial bargaining proposals
that encompass broad issues of educational policy.
“We want contract negotiations to focus not only on wages, hours
and working conditions of teachers and support staff but on issues that
directly affect the quality of the education the community is providing
for its children,” Craney said.
Local negotiators are encouraged not to acquiesce to the QEO, which
is undermining teacher (and by extension support staff) salaries and
ultimately hurting education.
Generally, the QEO law provides for a teacher salary increase of 2.1%.
That means teachers are losing about 1.5% every year to the cost of
living. Those losses are compounded every year and also significantly
reduce retirement earnings, which are based on salary levels.
An individual’s salary increase may be greater than 2.1% if he
or she also is moving up the salary schedule. But that movement is designed
to reward teachers for increased experience.
Sally Heideman, editor of the Kenosha Education Association’s
newsletter, GLUE, recently wrote this explanation of the issue:
“Unfortunately, all too often the public views the moving steps
as improvement and not what it really is. The schedule is a promise
of a barely adequate salary if you stay in one district for an extended
period of time and continue to support higher education institutions
with tuition dollars. Salary improvement is the attempt to increase
salary and keep pace with inflation and the cost of living. To illustrate
the point, let us consider a 40-year career in education as an example;
this is supposing beginning after four years in college and retiring
between 62 and 65. Many of our membership can identify with this example.
Under the current contract, this person would be at the end of the
salary schedule within 15 years. For the next 25 years, he or she
would continue to be at this same level. In simple terms, for 25 years
of a career the only defense this person has against inflation is
salary improvement.”
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association also addressed this
issue recently in its newsletter, Sharpener:
“The cumulative negative impact of the salary cap law continues
to threaten the financial feasibility of teaching as a career. Veteran
teachers who no longer receive increments are already feeling the
impact. Moreover, the QEO law is much more harmful to less senior
teachers in the long run. The longer teachers are subjected to the
law, the more the caps devastate both career earnings and retirement
benefits.”
The Sharpener article concluded with this prediction: “If the
school board takes a hard line in the upcoming round of bargaining and
insists on limiting teacher salary raises to minimum QEO increases,
teachers will undoubtedly react very strongly against such unfair treatment.”
Putting teacher
salaries in perspective
Resources on the
QEO
Posted January 30, 1997