The last bell rang on the last day of the school year. I looked around my science classroom. Dead fish at every lab station, the remains of several interesting labs. Yes, they were preserved, and yes, the students had followed instructions on putting them back in containers, but still, these dead fish just could not sit in my classroom over the summer—they would need to be disposed of properly, and I would be the one who would need to do that.
During that school year, teachers in my district did not receive any paid time after the end of the year for closing down classrooms, performing check out procedures, and so on. At the moment the last bell rang, that was it–any more time spent doing those activities was on our own, and unpaid. Really, the idea that teachers are done with classroom work the moment the students leave in June is absurd.
Soon after that school day, my local association bargaining team, of which I am a member, met in my classroom for a planning session. As we surveyed the dead fish on the lab benches, the bargaining team talked about how all members have the equivalent of “dead fish”—things that just have to be done after the end of the school year in order to ensure a great start to the next school year. Surveys and individual conversations with members revealed the same thing—teachers and other educators needed some time at the end of the school year.
When our team put together a list of priorities for the next bargaining season, you guessed it—a paid day at the end of the school year for all members made the list—and we got it! Unfortunately, the term "Dead Fish Day" did not make it into actual contract language–nope, instead we're calling it by the much less imaginative term “M7 day,” named after the “M” section of the contract.
In my local association, no one has any union release time–we are just a bunch of teachers after school. This past year, our local bunch of teachers had a lot of bargaining to do. Most of the issues we bargained came directly from members, issues we found out about through meetings, personal conversations, or surveys. Bargained support for professional development, collaboration time schedules, and paid time in the form of days outside of student days are examples of issues coming directly from local members. We also bargained issues originating at the state level, such as the TPEP teacher evaluation program. On more complex and technical issues, we received assistance from the WEA, and we were grateful for the support. However, for the most part, this bargaining was local!
Why do we bargain? Well supported educators mean well supported students, and making a positive impact on student learning was a guiding principle in our work. This bargaining is important to our fellow educators, the ones we work with, eat lunch with, spend time with every day. This makes it fulfilling work. Our group also seemed to like working as a team of motivated teachers on a set of interesting problems. We tackled many issues in bargaining–issues affecting all members, issues affecting single individuals. Were we able to resolve all concerns to everyone’s satisfaction? No, and that will never be completely possible, but much of the work is ongoing!
So what did our bargaining look like? For the most part, we followed an interest-based bargaining model—see Rob’s recent post. A mutually agreed upon facilitator provided a joint training to district and local association teams.
When we were considering interest based bargaining a few years ago, I spoke to a number of people about it. An experienced and well respected teacher and bargainer from a nearby association gave me his opinion. He looked me in the eye, firmly put his hand down on the table, leaned over, and said, "Interest based bargaining? There's no such thing."
I heard other views on interest based bargaining, from area district and association teams:
–“This is not how we did things when I was in the military!”
–“We wanted to do interest based bargaining, but we actually came in with a single strong position on the issue!”
–“When it comes to money, the bargaining always turns positional.” I also heard a number of more positive comments.
I will say, at the end of the bargaining, when we were dealing with nitty-gritty financial details, we ended up exchanging proposals as opposed to following the interest based protocol—but for the most part (with a few notable exceptions) interest based bargaining is the model we followed, and I do think it was helpful.
Teacher voice may be heard, but whether or not it is listened to varies widely. Many (not all!) school committees with teacher participation serve more of an advisory function, as opposed to operating as a decision making body. Collective bargaining assures that teachers and other educator members are able to participate in decisions.
We faced many challenges during this year's bargain. There were changes in district leadership throughout the process. Some negotiations meetings were more tense, some more relaxed. Many were long! In terms of coming to consensus, we followed a thumbs-up, thumbs-sideways, thumbs-down model. Thumbs-sideways meant you were not fully in agreement, but you would not block the decision of the group. Thumbs-down meant you would block the decision of the group, and the group would need to continue to bargain the issue.
One of my take-aways in terms of group process came from the interest-based bargaining trainer—she said, “Thumbs down can be a gift to the group!” Her reasoning? Very often, if someone involved in the bargaining itself is hesitant enough to be thumbs-down on an issue, then the decision may not result in a durable agreement. Spending a bit more time in continued discussion and bargaining, and really hashing out those difficult issues, can prevent problems later.
Thumbs-sideways happens fairly often here–there's always one in every group 😉 It does force one to stop and consider that although the group has reached consensus, other viewpoints still exist—a good lesson even outside of bargaining!
We still need collective bargaining. So many of my friends can’t believe I’d work a contract that served the lowest common denominator – that was general enough to work for every teacher and didn’t reward any particular strengths I brought to the profession – but I don’t see any other model working.
For one thing, the negotiating process, where an employee sits down with HR and hashes out the terms of employment, is just not sustainable when there are 5,000 teachers.
So, collective bargaining with our local EAs is the way to go. I really like what I’ve heard about interest-based bargaining. It sounds better than digging trenches and waiting for the other side to capitulate under the pressure and stress of the start of the school year.
As one of your fellow bargainers,I think you nailed the process. And I appreciate the limitations of the Interest Based model in that employers and employees may share some interests but they are also coming from different places. One advantage to the model, especially in a small district, is that the process makes it easier work with the folks from the other side the next day when we do have to work with them.