Based upon the poor condition of labor/management relations in our state now, it is hard to believe Wisconsin was the first state to adopt a public sector collective bargaining law in 1959.

This law allowed unions for cities, counties, other municipalities and school districts (public sector) to bargain for wages, hours and working conditions, but it did not have a working impasse resolution procedure. This law allowed for mediation, but both sides had to agree (which school boards rarely did) and strikes were expressly prohibited.

Many school districts took maximum advantage of the law by keeping entry salaries high, but all other salary-related amounts (increments, lanes, higher degree amounts) low plus only provided the bare minimum or nothing in fringe benefits.

These districts became training grounds and lacked significant teacher retention or experienced staff.

I know this because the district I taught in had far fewer benefits and much lower wages than Fond du Lac or West Bend, yet was geographically right between them. We lost a lot of good teachers to those districts.

The management side of the teeter-totter had all the power and teachers had none, but in 1974 two separate things happened. In January, I started bargaining for teachers and later the Hortonville teachers went on strike, because they felt they deserved higher wages and more benefits.

Those teachers were all fired because the strike was illegal, but it demonstrated to the entire state and legislators how mistreated teachers were in many districts.

State Senators and Assembly Representatives held hearings throughout the state and the result was Senate Bill 15 was passed giving public employees mandatory mediation and binding arbitration rights.

When I started bargaining, our teachers had five sick days versus 10 in other districts, did not have fully paid teacher retirement benefits and could not use sick days for maternity leave (just to name a few).

We had full-time teachers (not entry level) who qualified for food stamps and some teachers children qualified for free and reduced lunch at school. I asked for fairness and the ability for teachers to stay and keep educating children rather than being forced to relocate to other districts for economic reasons. Our teachers united in their beliefs.

Teachers unions trained leaders and mobilized members during unpaid time and used people power to bring about necessary changes without being greedy. No school districts went bankrupt and Wisconsin students won because test scores went up. In fact, Wisconsin ranked in the top five in ACT and SAT scores when compared to all other states.

Every year my union educated new teachers regarding the struggles we had to get them decent wages and benefits and warned they should not take them for granted.

However, other unions did not and just had teachers pay their dues with no other investment. New teachers graduating from college just assumed all the benefits were a right or entitlement rather than an investment that needed to be protected.

Originally posted here:
Anatomy of unions, Part 2 - Ashland Daily Press