October Newsflash
Teacher contract talks continue, imposition still looms
With the deadline for contract negotiations between the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) and the School District of Philadelphia extended for the third time, to October 10, uncertainty about the outcome remains.
What is certain is that imposing a teachers’ contract – as threatened by School Reform Commission (SRC) Chairman James Nevels in comments late last month – is an approach that has caused disruption in communities and schools elsewhere in the country where teachers were confronted with similar action.
From a drop in student enrollment to dramatic declines in school activities to on-going labor unrest and teacher/district tensions, the fallout from imposed contracts continues to be felt in other communities.
“Frustration, stress, and anger are spreading throughout Wisconsin schools,” the Wisconsin Education Association Council, which represents 97,000 members in that state, noted on its website, in response to contracts imposed in 47 instances in that state since 2001.
Elsewhere, strained relations between teachers and the community of Middletown Township, N.J., continue in the aftermath of an imposed contract in 1998. Tensions erupted in an illegal 2001 strike that teachers took when faced with the threat of a yet another imposed contract there. The continuing conflict was the featured article in the September 29 edition of Education Week. Entitled “Bad Blood,” the article detailed how the 2001 strike led to the arrests of nearly 230 teachers, with at least one family of angry residents posting a yard sign that read, “Leave them in jail.”
The situation in Philadelphia has hardly generated such bitterness. But the absence of a contract has already taken a toll. Teacher vacancies numbered 156 on October 4, plus 31 part-time positions, according to the District’s website.
The PFT has blamed the spike in vacancies as compared to last year on resignations and retirements influenced by the uncertainty of the contract situation.
“Certainly, people want to take jobs where they know what their salaries and benefits are, and what the work rules are,” said PFT spokeswoman Barbara Goodman.
Trying to
avoid imposition
The four-year contract that covers 21,000
PFT members, including 11,300 teachers,
expired August 31, but was extended to
September 10, then to September 30, and
most recently to October 10, in hopes
of reaching an agreement.
In interviews, both sides expressed optimism that an agreement could be reached.
At issue are teacher salaries, healthcare cost-cutting measures, and the length of the workday. But the most controversial element involves the School Reform Commission’s advocacy of site selection: shifting teacher hiring from a system that allows teachers to transfer into schools of their choosing, with priority based on seniority. The School District would like to place such a decision in the hands of principals, but their proposals have raised hackles among teachers; the SRC’s plan turns over a number of school-based decision-making powers to principals.
Nevels said in late September that if the two sides had not reached an agreement by the end of September, the SRC would impose a contract on union members. Imposition of a contract by the SRC is allowed under Act 46, the state takeover law, and teacher strikes are forbidden.
Days before the September 30 deadline, Nevels expressed optimism about the talks and opened the door to another extension.
However, Nevels stressed that he stood by his desire to bring an end to unresolved contract issues, telling a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, “We can’t let this situation drag out indefinitely.”
PFT spokeswoman Goodman expressed hope for on-going negotiations and for the possibility of a resolution within days.
“No one wants an imposed contract,” she said in a phone interview.
Children’s advocate Shelly Yanoff, of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth, agreed: “Imposition is bound to trigger a hostile reaction. Kids suffer in hostile environments.”
“It’s important to keep negotiating and to try to find the third way,” she added. “It seems to me that if you talked to the people on the street and the teachers in the classroom, most of the teachers and most of the administrators could identify a third way . . . if we could only get there.”
Failing to
‘get there'
Other school districts offer a glimpse
at the consequences for schools and communities
that fail to “get there” —
when school boards and teachers’
unions do not reach contract agreements.
A school district in western Michigan
and many in the state of Wisconsin are
still grappling with the impact of imposed
contracts there.
In western Michigan, teachers at the Kentwood School District this school year began working under an imposed contract that school officials decided on over the summer.
A state law enacted in 1994 allows school boards in Michigan to impose a contract. If contract talks reach an impasse after 30 days, the board can impose its last, best offer and hire replacements for teachers who do not accept it. The law also bans teacher strikes, instituting a fine of $5,000 a day on striking unions, and docking teachers one day’s pay for every day they strike. Teachers can also be fired for walking off the job.
Kentwood teachers responded to the forced contract by refusing to donate time to volunteer school activities – a response teachers commonly implement when forced to work under an imposed contract.
Teachers have “taken the stance that we refuse to volunteer for committees, afterschool activities, particularly things that are volunteer,” said James Sawyer, president of the Kentwood Education Association.
One consequence was the near-demise of a districtwide fifth-grade basketball league that generally drew 1,800 students a year. This school year, only 80 students are participating.
“And it will have a negative effect on the district,” Sawyer said of the lack of participation, “because a lot of our kids who go through that program are nurtured into high schools.”
When schools did open, that district of about 9,000 students saw a decrease of about 2.2 percent, or 200 students, in its enrollment, according to Sawyer.
Sawyer said that while school officials blamed the enrollment drop on the region’s declining economy, student population had increased in other school systems in the immediate surrounding area.
He also said that because state funding is based on student enrollment, the population loss meant $1.34 million less in state funding for the Kentwood schools.
Despite the threat of fines and possible firing, Kentwood Education Association members recently voted to authorize a strike.
Another region that has experience with imposed teacher contracts is Wisconsin. That state has implemented a “Qualified Economic Offer” (QEO) provision for its school districts in teacher contract negotiations. It allows a school board to impose a contract on teachers so long as the contract includes a total salary and benefit increase of 3.8 percent. Teachers have argued that with healthcare costs increasing – at rates as high as 30 percent – the 3.8 percent package increase basically amounted to a cut.
Wisconsin school boards have thus far imposed QEO contracts in 45 instances since July 2001.
“When a school board imposes a QEO on its teaching staff, it is demoralizing,” Stan Johnson, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), said on the union’s website. The WEAC represents 97,000 members, including more than 68,000 teachers, counselors and library media specialists. “Teachers are cut out of the process and demeaned. It affects morale, and leads to a very poor learning environment.”
Johnson cited a recent study indicating that one of every seven general education teachers in Wisconsin has left the profession since 2000-01, the result of what he called “salary degradation” allowed by the imposed contract law.
Contact Notebook staff writer Sheila Simmons at 215-951-0330 x156 or sheilas@thenotebook.org.