The Detroit Free Press reports this week that a group of clerical employees in a suburban Detroit school district have opted to drop the National Education Association and represent themselves as their own union:
“Restructuring our association allows us to reduce our costs for representation and significantly lower the dues,” said Kim Meray, president of SROPA.
It was only about a month ago that a group of teachers in Riley, Kansas took the same step—and explained why they did so (MP3). A couple years ago, teachers in a rural Illinois school district also decertified the NEA. And while the cases still are few, these aren’t the only examples.
So off and on the question has been ringing in my ears of late: Is the “local-only” union an idea with appeal to any teachers in Colorado? Certainly, it’s not a realistic expectation for any of the larger school districts. But what about the handful of rural districts that engage in “exclusive representative” bargaining with the teachers union? (Only 42 of Colorado’s 178 school districts are known to practice this sort of bargaining, so it truly is just a handful.)
The confluence of three trends just might cause us to see more “local-only” teachers unions emerge in coming months—if not in rural Colorado, then certainly in other parts of the country where union bargaining power is more entrenched.
The first trend is highlighted by the quote at the beginning. As school budgets are pressed by a tight economy and hoping for “stimulus” fund rescue, many of their employees are feeling the pinch as well. Most full-time Colorado teachers who are members or unintentional agency-fee payers to the NEA/CEA will cough up between $700 and $800 in dues money this year, depending on the district. Of that money, $521 goes to the state and national union. A “local-only” union could be a significant cost-saver.
The second trend is the proliferation and public acceptance of public school choice. It’s not just for students. The growth in professional options is mirrored by a growth in membership options. The “local-only” union is another option at the disposal of professional teachers.
The third trend is the outside-the-classroom emphasis on increasing teacher quality that resounds inside many classrooms. Perhaps we indeed will see the reform winds shifting toward the Type I evaluation error, and a teacher class more dedicated to defending the profession than the practitioner. It’s not on the NEA’s agenda, but a “local-only” teachers union could be geared toward more of a professional faculty senate model.
I’m sure the NEA is prepared to respond with reasons why their organization is better suited to represent teachers at the going rate. And in many cases they may be right. But it’s also worth considering if a third (or is it fourth or fifth?) way might be emerging for public educators.
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Ben, this is a very interesting issue, thanks for bringing attention to it.
Here in Colorado, neither the state Labor Peace Act nor the NLRA controls these issues. Employer recognition is purely a voluntary matter. If the school districts decide they don’t wish to recognize a “local” union, they don’t have to, end-o-story.
Classified workers at DPS were split into a number of “local unions” in the 1970s, many of which are informal and not affiliated with any national entity. Several years ago, I asked for proof that one of these, the “Association of Building, Grounds,” had been elected by workers themselves, and there was none. There also are no regulations over the management of these entities or the extent to which union officials may interact with management.
The past officials of this association have generally become part of DPS administration later.
Some of the “local unions” are utilized less for employee benefit and more to facilitate managerial interests. Please note also, that all DPS’ recognized unions other than the one representing teachers, whom it cannot as readily control, are prevented from striking according to a “resolution” that is inconsistent with the Court ruling in the Colorado Supreme Court’s Montezuma Schools ruling whereby unionized labor can strike under the state Industrial Relations Court. And, if you look back far enough in DPS Board Minutes, you will even see that some “union-represented” members of Amalgamated Transit were threatened with “decertification” for representing employees against “retaliatory” and “unjust” acts of DPS administrators such as “favoritism” of certain individuals.
Question: If an employer can recognize a union with no vote of the workers having ever adopted that entity as their “exclusive representative” — is that entity a labor union? Assuming the answer to that is “Yes,” then another question: If the employer can threaten to “decertify” a union if it doesn’t obey the employer — what good is it?
Unions that actually represent individuals in a bureaucratic mechanism are favored in American commerce, and by this writer, for a variety of reasons. Please don’t forget all the non-educators at school districts throughout Colorado are simple at-will workers whose retirement futures are tied up in a non-portable, mandatory pension plan, while at the same time they can be fired because an administrator’s new son-in-law needs a job. Civil service was intended to address all these issues but since it’s not enforced as applicable to the state’s school districts, some mechanism has to exist or the place will be filled with favored Friends of Friends and not actual workers, which is not to say it’s not that way anyway.
In contrast, any entity that masquerades as something it’s not, isn’t. In attempting to identify one from the other at DPS, I concluded it appreciates unionization only when this is a cheap and effective method of controlling large groups of real live American citizens equipped with Constitutional rights, and is not likely to recognize more equipped representatives such as Teamsters, who have a better grasp of member rights under federal law and are more likely to actually represent members against threats of “decertification” and lockouts in the event of a strike.
One thing I feel very strongly about: any labor union purporting to serve as workers’ “exclusive representative” should have been elected by a majority of those workers, at some point, and continuing on some reasonable basis throughout the recognition of that entity by the employer. Mandating that workers accept “exclusive representatives” they never elected deprives them of rights we send American soldiers to assert in other countries.
As you know I once digested all these issues from various perspectives, and from every one of those perspectives, my conclusion was that the setup was wrong to begin with and has been maintained and managed even more poorly. When Governor Ritter initiated this same “unionization” mechanism for state workers already benefiting from civil service, I just about choked on my morning coffee.
Excuse me, that was supposed to read “Industrial Relations Act,” which was the first such legislation placed into effect nationally, and resulted directly from the Ludlow tragedy earlier last century. Colorado looked dangerously unregulated to the national public, acted like lightning to restore its reputation, and yet has ended up as one of the few states without a public-workers union recognition statute.
Hey Ben,
I’m not sure I agree with you that large districts can’t successfully decertify. When taught in a large suburban district in Minnesota, we decertified and then added back both the NEA and AFT as affiliates of the local. That was our was of solving the problem of split representation between the AFT and NEA state affiliates. I blogged some links and a trackback to you at http://charterinsights.blogspot.com/2009/04/local-union-option.html
Thanks, Peter, for pointing out this example to me. I will take a closer look. Still believe that on its face the local-only union option is a more difficult proposition for large urban/suburban school districts. It would seem like a perfect storm might be needed. And my initial look at the Minnesota example is the same conditions don’t fit for Colorado. But I’m definitely willing to reconsider.
Kathy, I have several questions from your interesting comment:
1. Your points are right about Colorado’s current controlling legal authority (or lack thereof) regarding government – employee labor relations. Do you think some (probably smaller and/or medium-sized) school districts be more open to formal bargaining relations if it were with a local-only union?
2. I’m familiar with the DPS unions and master agreements you cite. Most or all of them grant 15 annual leave days to the union “president”, potentially another in itself. But in what way(s) does/did the management benefit from having these imposed “exclusive representative” organizations in place? I am curious to learn more. Email me if you prefer.
3. Are you advocating that Colorado needs a public-sector bargaining law? If so, what it would look like? Most Colorado school districts have no interest in (and are not suited for) collective bargaining. The same can be said for many cities and virtually all county governments.
4. I’m confused by your comparison of Ritter’s unionization executive order with the DPS arrangements. Didn’t his order at least establish a procedure for worker election? Sure, it suffered from low participation and lack of competitive interest in representation, but there technically was a vote:
http://bendegrow.com/2008/dont-give-a-crap-wins-bill-ritters-state-employee-union-elections/
http://bendegrow.com/2008/its-official-colorado-government-100-unionized-thanks-to-bill-ritter/
As with our own national Constitution, I believe that public-sector labor relations would improve if governed by a genuine “majority rule, minority rights” framework. Local-only unionism is one option that should be on table. Government employees should be able to vote out a union as easily as they can vote one in. A majority of affected employees ought to decide. And no dissenting employee should be forced to join or subsidize an organization with which he disagrees. That should apply, whether the union is international, national, state-based, or local-only.
Dear Peter,
Minnesota is one of the majority of states enjoying a statute for public employment: 179A.01 et seq.
In the context of Ben’s article and my comments, the workers were clerical, non-educating workers. It is a little easier (for me, anyway) to intellectually consider the unionization issues, by separating the educating work force. With that same thought in mind, so to speak, our state Constitutional adoption of civil service also makes that distinction.
In any event, Colorado doesn’t have a statute such that the one you have in Minnesota, which only just begns with this lofty text (sorry, Ben, but this is what I wish we had here, then workers including teachers could easily split off from a national organization or even form special-education unions and the like, instead we have a new statute excepting specified members from the free-for-all that currently exists):
“179A.01 PUBLIC POLICY.
(a) It is the public policy of this state and the purpose of sections 179A.01 to 179A.25 to promote orderly and constructive relationships between all public employers and their employees. This policy is subject to the paramount right of the citizens of this state to keep inviolate the guarantees for their health, education, safety, and welfare.
(b) The relationships between the public, public employees, and employer governing bodies involve responsibilities to the public and a need for cooperation and employment protection which are different from those found in the private sector. The importance or necessity of some services to the public can create imbalances in the relative bargaining power between public employees and employers. As a result, unique approaches to negotiations and resolutions of disputes between public employees and employers are necessary.”
Then this Minnesota legislation gets specific about elections, relationships between employer and representative, and the other stuff we need in order to move these pieces around smoothly. In my view, leaving these issues to Politics instead has not worked out, and left the Colorado public as confused as it ought to be. We think the state views public collective bargaining in one way because of the lack of a statutory mechanism, then oops! one day the Governor adopts a Resolution going the exact other direction. “Only in Colorado!”