Portside

In an analysis of a recently concluded contract campaign by Minnesota teachers (Portside Labor, March 24), Peter Rachleff wrote that “some workers and unions are also putting forward new issues, practices, and strategies which represent another vector in the transformation of collective bargaining. . .The Saint Paul Federation of Teachers’ [SPFT] recent contract campaign is an impressive example of this new vector.”

With all due respect to the author, SPFT, and what appears to be a great settlement, I must take issue with the above conclusion and certain other key points raised about collective bargaining. These “new issues, practices, and strategies” may have been a “new vector” for the St. Paul area, but they are far from being new in the United States.  As one who served in numerous capacities representing teachers, educational support staff, and registered nurses for 25 years spanning the 1980s through 2012, I can state categorically that these bargaining strategies have been used for decades.  I was personally involved in presenting scores of bargaining proposals that included what in the ‘trade’ are called non-mandatory subjects of bargaining including staffing levels, the creation of new job classifications, and even the evaluation of supervisory and administrative personnel by union employees. On more than one occasion we were successful in incorporating some of those proposals into a contract. My own experiences were hardly unique.

Also not new is involving the community in the bargaining process.  I was involved in a lengthy school strike in Ohio in 2001-02 while a Regional Director with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (AFSCME). In the very early days of the three-month strike, we joined with parents in demanding that the Board of Education agree to hold a public negotiations session.  The employer conceded and that went a long way to gaining greater public support and eventually winning the strike.  

Rachleff also wrote that “While no one on either side of the negotiating table denied for a moment that these issues would cost substantial money to address, it is important to note that the union had not placed a formal demand for wages and benefits on the table. SPFT’s leadership was quite explicit that teachers’ compensation would be the last issue they would address. This really was a new approach to collective bargaining.”  

This really was not a new approach.  First of all, economic issues are almost always discussed and resolved last in any contract negotiations.  Secondly, the tactic of not presenting a formal economic proposal was used on numerous occasions over the years – we would simply write “to be discussed” in lieu of a specific proposal on salary. Third, the fairly widespread use of Interest Based Bargaining, or similar spinoffs like “modified traditional,” formalized the process of not introducing specific proposals at the outset of the process. The author could have correctly noted that these more advanced and effective strategies and tactics he refers to have been too often put on the back-burner for the sake of expediency, but that is quite different from claiming that they are new. 

The author also wrote, incorrectly, that “Seven-plus decades of collective bargaining practices have established a set of behaviors as ‘normal,’ ‘conventional,’ or ‘typical.’ These include: the grounds on which bargaining units are determined, such as the exclusion of foremen from membership . . .  a machinery for the resolution of disputes and discipline, including grievance procedures, mediation, arbitration, and the right to strike; ground rules for unions’ use of the strike and management’s use of the lock-out; and the scope of bargaining itself and the claim of management rights. While none of these practices is dictated by the law, there are labor lawyers, management consultants, scholars, and journalists who talk about them as if they are non-negotiable.” 

This is not true in the pubic sector.  In Ohio, all of the above are written into ORC 4117, the Collective Bargaining Law that was enacted in 1984.  The same is true of Pennsylvania’s law and a quick look on the Internet revealed that even Minnesota’s Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA) includes the same provisions.    

Additionally, I must raise concern with two points made by the author toward the end of his article:

(1) “Teachers themselves and the parents whose children they teach know best how children can succeed in challenging, and creative, school settings.” Management in the public sector is not the same as management in the private sector.  There actually are school administrators and elected school board leaders who really are concerned with and knowledgeable about the education of children.  I’ve met some of them and bargained with them.  Many really do have expertise to go with their credentials.  Certainly teachers and parents have a special contribution to make in addressing the complex problems of our educational system, but they don’t necessarily know best.

(2) “One can credibly argue that the managers of non-profit hospitals and other institutions have no reasonable grounds on which to challenge nurses’ and other healthcare workers’ efforts to bargain about patient staffing, the delivery of care, and other workplace issues about which they truly know little.”  One might “credibly argue” that too many managers know too little.  But to imply that all “the managers” universally “know little” about “patient staffing” – the correct terminology would be patient-staffing ratios – and “the delivery of care” in the highly complex institutions they manage is ludicrous.  I’d be the last person to suggest that all management personnel are saints – I’ve dealt with plenty who displayed ignorance and incompetence.  But, it would be dishonest and disingenuous not to recognize that there are good and bad apples in every bucket.    

The author, to his credit, does correctly note that there are deep problems with the collective bargaining process in the United States which have only gotten worse due to the relentless assault on unions and union rights.  The problems of bargaining, though, are complex and defy simple solutions.  Management’s rights have historically been legally presumed as property rights and predate employee rights which must be fought for and enacted into law or contract.  All labor struggles are struggles against management rights – including management’s inherent right to divvy up profits or surpluses, limited only by the presence of a union and collective bargaining, or statute.  Labor laws, weak as they might be, contain both encroachments upon management’s rights or the formalization of those rights – and the author is absolutely correct in asserting that unions, in general, have been too timid in challenging management prerogatives.

But as the private-sector membership of unions continues to decline, this has presented organized labor with a monumental challenge.  This decline in private-sector unionization and the related decline in private-sector employees’ living standards, have made public employee unions an “easy” target.  Organized labor needs, as was recognized at the last convention of the AFL-CIO, to find the way to become a vibrant, omnipresent, coherent, and progressive force in our cities, states, and communities, on behalf of the vast American majority who have seen their wages, pensions, and healthcare benefits steadily eroding, and, a powerful voice against the wealthy and the powerful, who are either leading the anti-union charge or failing to do anything about it.     

Marc Beallor was an organizer, field representative, and regional director for AFSCME Local 4 (Ohio Association of Public School Employees) from 1984-2006.  He was a labor representative and organizer for the New York State Nurses Association from 2010-2012.  He has been a member of the United Steel Workers, the Teamsters, and the former International Union of Electrical Workers (now part of CWA).