Teachers, School Boards, and Collective Bargaining--A Changing of the Guard

R E P O R T R E S U M E S ED 017 016 EA 001 057 TEACHERS, SCHOOL BOARDS, AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING--A CHANGING OF THE GUARD. BY- DOHERTY, ROBERT E. OBERER, WALTER E. STATE UNIV. OF N.Y., ITHACA REPORT NUMBER ILR-PAPERBACK-NO-2 PUB DATE MAY 67 EDRS PRICE MF-$0.75 HC-$5.92 146F. DESCRIPTORS- *TEACHERS, *BOARDS OF EDUCATION, *COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES, TEACHER SALARIES, FRINGE BENEFITS, TEACHING CONDITIONS, *TEACHER ASSOCIATIONS, SANCTIONS, TEACHER STRIKES, COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATION, CONTRACTS, *STATE LEGISLATION, EMPLOYER EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP, GRIEVANCE PROCEDURES, ITHACA, NEA, AFT, FOUR MAJOR AREAS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING FOR TEACHERS; BASED ON A REVIEW OF HISTORICAL RECORDS, A COMPARISON OF EXPERIENCES, A STUDY OF RELEVANT DOCUMENTS, AND INTERVIEWS WITH PERSONNEL DIRECTLY INVOLVED ARE DEFINED AND ANALYZED--(1) FACTORS GIVING RISE TO THE BILATERAL DETERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, (2) THE CHARACTER OF THE TWO TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS BEHIND THE MOVEMENT;(3) LEGAL QUESTIONS RAISED BY COLLECTIVE ACTION AMONG TEACHERS, AND (4) IMPLICATIONS OF TEACHER BARGAINING FOR THE QUALITY OF THE EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISE. THE INCREASING DEMAND FOR FORMALIZED EMPLOYMENT ARRANGEMENTS WITH LOCAL SCHOOL BOARDS IS DUE TO A PROPORTIONATE INC1EASE IN THE NUMBER OF MALE TEACHERS, LOW SALARIES, UNSATISTACTORY WORKING CONDITIONS, THE MOUNTING FRUSTRATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHING, AND GROWING COMPETITION BETWEEN THE TWO MAJOR TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS. SPECIAL ATTENTION IS GIVEN TO QUESTIONS CONCERNING DESIRABLE STATE LEGISLATION, INCLUDING VARIOUS ASPECTS OF REPRESENTATION: UNFAIR PRACTICES, STRIKES, SANCTIONS, NEGOTIATION AND IMPASSE PROCEDURES, AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF LEGISLATION WHEN ENACTED. A COMPARISON OF REPRESENTATIVE PROVISIONS IN TWO COMPREHENSIVE TEACHER-SCHOOL BOARD AGREEMENTS NEGOTIATED BY AFT AND NEA AFFILIATES IS APPENDED. THIS DOCUMENT IS ALSO AVAILABLE FROM DISTRIBUTION CENTER, NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N.Y. 14850; FOR $2.00. (J K) Paperback No. 2 U SDEPARTMENT ',f HEALTH EDUCATION 8 WELFARE rffICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS rtEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM !HE PERSON OR ORGLNI'ATION ORIGINIIING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT KCESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDtICATION POSITION ORpe.icy Teachers, School Boards, and Collective Bargaining: A Changing of the Guard Robert E. Doherty and Walter E. Oberer ILR Paperback No. 2 May 1967 New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relat5ons, a Statutory College of the State University, Cornell University, Ithaca ,, Copyright © 1967 by Cornell University All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card number: 67-63482 Price: $2.00 ORDER FROM: Distribution Center, New York State School of Industrial and Labor RelatiAins Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY W IA- eS TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER." PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .., BY THE CAYUGA PRESS OF ITHACA, N.Y. V 1 22 45 119 127 137 . the Some for Employeeas as Law: Ahead Contents the Concerning Bargaining ALook . : Teacher Teacher and Man Answers Collectiveof School School and Legislation Education Public Public Bargaining of Questions Desirable Implications Quality Foreword Introduction IThe IIThe Organization IIITeacher IV Appendix Index Foreword By a process not entirely unlike anunplanned pregnancy, a project which began as a modest holding ofscholarly hands has blossomedinto a book. As originallyconceived, this study was to havebeen a bulletin in the School of Industrial and LaborRelations' series on currentdevelop- ments in employment relations.The verbosity of the authorsproduced a volume that transcended the "bulletin" categorywithout quite measuring up to any otherestablished literary form. The consequenceis that their manuscript has been assigned to thatmiscellaneous reservoir of undis- ciplined pedantry "book." As such, it has been deemed deservingof the accoutrements befitting its genre. Accordingly, we make thefollowing acknowledgements: To Professor Leonard Adams, Director ofPublications, we express our grati- tude for his staunch permissiveness inthe face of our word barrage. To Professor Kurt Hanslowe, who readthe manuscript more times than he would like to remember, we express ourcondolences. To Frances Eagan, for her deft editorial hand, we express ourrelief. In this context, it is customary forauthors to thank theirWives for their patience, help, and inspiration.We are sorry to report that our standards of honesty will not permit us todo this. Indeed, once our wives learned that it was unlikely that the "book"would add any money to the family coffers or luster to the family names(two compensations they E:.',em ever willing to share),their indifference approached hostility.We would, however, like to thank them for thesmall effort they made in helping to prepare the index such as it is. R. E. D. i. W. E. O. April 1967 Ithaca, New York Introduction An expert, according to an old and rather lame joke, is anyone with a briefcase who is more than twenty miles from home. By this standard, if no other, the authors of this volume qualify as experts inthe new field of collective bargaining in public education. Both have picked up their briefcases and traveled on many occasions, one to serve as a moderator and arbitrator ir reacher representation and bargaining disputes, the other to conduct conferences and workshops in employer-employee relations for board members, school administrators, and teachers. To be suiwe ba.:e not been at these chores for long,although our involvement is almost as old as the problems themselves. When we first became interested in teacher-board of education relationships, there was but one scho& district, New York City, in which teachers were covered by a compreN ;!live agreement, and only one state, Wisconsin, had passed legislation providing for collective bargaining rights for public school employees. Now, two and one-half years later, there are statutes in seven other states providing for some sort of bargaining rights for teachers, and scores of comprehensive collective agreements have been negotiated..0 This book was written during the summer of 1966. Thus our findings are based on very recent his.c,.y, an era that educationalhistorians of the future will likely call the sere mai period of formal collective employment arrangements in education. 1. is almost as if someone had written a book about the nature and history of steamboating in 1811, just four years after Robert Fulton had launched the Clermont. Be that as it may, we think there is a need for a contri',Ition at this time from those who have had experience in this area. In some states statutes have been enacted hurriedly, often with a bow toward one or the other of the contending parties teacher organizations, a..!ininistrators, and board members vii 4 who arethemselves groping, however pontificaltheirinstitutional stances, for suitable answers to the many questions involved. This small volume may serve as a faint beacon for those concerned with providing a more appropriate structure for teacher-school board relations in a time of somewhat chaotic, but ci eative. flux. Our methodology, if we may use suchan exalted term to describe the way Ne went about our task, was to reflect upon and compare our experiences In the field,- to study the relevant documents (agreements, salary schedules, statistical materials, statutes, opinions ofcourts, public agencies, and arbitrators, and the emerging speculations of scholars),to interview veterans of tile young campaign hardlypast its first skirmishes in summary, to organize and shareour experience, research, and thinking on the subject at hand. We have assumed that the questions that aroused our curiosity would hold similar intrigue for school officials, teachers, legislators, and that elusive characterevery writer triesto reach, the intelligent, public-spirited citizen. There seemed to us four broad questions of fundamental importance: What has prompted this movement toward bilateral determination of employment conditions in public schools? What is the character of the teacher organizations behind this movement? Whatare the legal questions raised by collective action among teachers and what legislation has been and should be enacted? What implications does teacher bargaining have for the quality of the educational enterprise? The four chapters of this work constitute our effort to answer, seriatim, the foregoingques- tions. The answers are not definitive. But the alternative to writingnow on the basis of our present, tentative conclusions is to postpone the contribu- tion we may be able to make until a time when life will have passedus by, when the relationships which are now in theprocess of jelling will have acquired a set beyond the reach of any guidelines, warnings,or caveats we might suggest. This is particularly the case with respect to Chapter 3, in which we assess and evaluate current teacher bargaining statutes and make our tentative recommendations. We have chosen to risk a premature judgment in preference toa delayed post-mortem. In short, we have stuck our necks out in order to getour noses into the problems involved while they are still viable. viii I The Public School Teacheras Employee WHEN BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND his friend James Ralph

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