University of Dayton eCommons Educational Leadership Faculty Publications Department of Educational Leadership Spring 2012 A Cautionary Tale of Collective Bargaining in Public Education: A Teacher's Right or Tail Wagging the Dog? Charles J. Russo University of Dayton,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/eda_fac_pub Part of the Educational Administration and Supervision Commons, and the Educational Leadership Commons eCommons Citation Russo, Charles J., "A Cautionary Tale of Collective Bargaining in Public Education: A Teacher's Right or Tail Wagging the Dog?" (2012). Educational Leadership Faculty Publications. 70. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/eda_fac_pub/70 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Educational Leadership at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Leadership Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. 1 A Cautionary Tale of Collective Bargaining in Public Education: A Teacher's Right or Tail Wagging the Dog? Copyright © 2012, University of Dayton Law Review Spring, 2012 37 Dayton L. Rev. Charles J. Russo n1 I. Introduction Considerable controversy has emerged in Wisconsin n2 and Ohio n3 over legislative attempts to limit the power of unions and the scope of public sector collective bargaining n4 in education. Union- led bargaining increases in educator salaries n5 and retirement benefits n6 won at the negotiating table not only impose significant additional costs on school boards. n7 Even so, these advances in salary and benefits outpace those in the private sector n8 and are becoming increasingly untenable for the public till, n9 these disputes reflect the degree to which teachers and their unions have come to treat collective bargaining as an immutable, entrenched right, n10 regardless of its impact on school board budgets and the ability of taxpayers to provide adequate funding.