Locals take bargaining by storm

Independence NEA wins representation election one year after winning the court challenge that reclaimed collective bargaining rights for educators.

Last year at this time, the cover story for Something Better boasted the biggest win for Missouri education employees in the last 60 years. Educators finally reclaimed their right to bargain collectively with the Missouri Supreme Court ruling in Independence NEA vs. Independence School District. The Court backed the original intent of the Missouri Constitution, which grants that “employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.”

Since last year’s decision, Missouri NEA locals have been working non-stop to gain recognition as the bargaining agents in their respective school districts, and to bargain good contracts for the employees they represent.

A year after the court decision, Independence NEA is the newly elected exclusive representative for the district’s educators.

Learn more about collective bargaining through MNEA's podcast. The six episode podcast series "MNEA on collective bargaining" discusses a variety of topics including bargaining preparation, binding agreements and exclusive representation.

The first step for an organization wishing to participate in the Independence exclusive representation election was to collect signatures on a petition asking that the group be placed on the election ballot. The agreement defining election rules set the threshold for participation at a ten percent of the teaching staff (80 signatures). INEA decided to build its organizational strength by mounting a campaign that would far exceed this number. The local, led by President Christopher Eager, sent out several waves of communication to Independence staff, both members and nonmembers, preparing the ground for the petition drive. INEA set an ambitious goal of 600 signatures, which would represent about 75 percent of eligible employees.

On May 13, INEA held a signature “blitz” in all of the district’s schools. INEA local activists were assisted in the drive by MNEA staff, retired members and NEA staff from around the state and the country. By the end of the day, INEA had gathered more than 600 signatures on their petitions. The local’s outstanding network of committed building representatives played the crucial role in making this success possible.

INEA isn’t the only MNEA local working to win representation rights and bargain successfully. MNEA locals across the state are doing the same.

Bargaining Assessment Team
The first step for a local wishing to begin down the road to successful collective bargaining is to request a visit from MNEA’s Bargaining Assessment Team. The BAT will schedule a visit with local leaders and members to assess the local’s readiness for a recognition campaign and then for bargaining, and will make recommendations for next steps in the process. To date, 29 MNEA local associations have scheduled and/or completed BAT visits to begin the process of reclaiming and exercising their collective bargaining rights.

Many of these BAT assessments have proved to be the first step in local campaigns to win recognition as exclusive bargaining representatives.

Card Campaigns
One form these efforts can take is a card campaign. Locals initiating a card campaign will gather signatures on “authorization cards” asking the local school board either to recognize MNEA as the exclusive bargaining representative (a process called “voluntary recognition”) or to hold a representation election, in which employees may democratically choose their representative organization.

Collective bargaining, by its very nature, requires exclusive representation. The National Labor Relations Act, which serves as the statutory framework for most employees in the private sector, contains language identical to that in the Missouri Constitution, guaranteeing employees the right to “bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.” Under that law, collective bargaining is carried out through exclusive representatives, not proportional panels. In addition, under the current statutory framework in Missouri, public employees covered by the meet-and-confer law are granted the ability to choose an exclusive representative.

This past spring, MNEA locals in three districts, other than Independence, have conducted highly successful card campaigns to achieve exclusive representation. In each case, local leaders and members were joined by MNEA staff and leaders in a “card blitz” designed to gather a large number of supporting signatures in a one- or two-day period.

Northwest
In the Northwest district, in Jefferson County, the local collected in a little over a day approximately 300 signed authorization cards requesting a representation election. Local President Pat Miller presented the cards to the board of education with the local’s request for an election.

Bayless
In the Bayless school district (in South St. Louis County), local leaders, with the assistance of MNEA organizers, collected cards (requesting that the local be recognized as exclusive representative) from almost 90 percent of the teaching staff in just one day. Local leaders presented a count of the cards to the local school board along with a request for voluntary recognition and testimony by supporters that underlined the value of bargaining to both teachers and the district. Bayless members and leaders are waiting for a response and planning the next steps in their campaign to win recognition and begin bargaining.

Wentzville
Wentzville NEA has scored a great victory in its campaign for exclusive representative status. WNEA members comprise 70 percent of the district’s teaching staff. The district had, for several years, imposed on teachers a “negotiations” framework that ignored the super-majority status of WNEA. That imposed framework created a teacher team on which WNEA and the local MSTA chapter were represented equally. In light of the Supreme Court decision, WNEA moved at the beginning of the school year to request exclusive representative status from the district for this year’s negotiations. In preparing for negotiations, the local surveyed its members on the issue and learned that approximately 80 percent believed that the imposed process needed to be changed. They then attempted to raise the issue in negotiations, again without success.

The local, led by President Scott Kiehl, decided that a card campaign was needed to demonstrate the overwhelming support of Wentzville teachers for choosing an exclusive representative. On Feb. 13, WNEA members and leaders, with support from MNEA leaders and staff, were present in every building in the district collecting authorization cards calling for a representation election. In one day, MNEA members and staff gathered approximately 500 signatures supporting democratic choice for teachers. The local reported the number of cards to the board of education, along with a renewed request for a representation election. Statements and letters from a number of local community leaders and labor organizations supported the presentation.

When the board of education still did not act, WNEA turned its attention to local school board elections, recommending three candidates (one incumbent and two newcomers) for the April 8 vote. WNEA members made hundreds of phone calls, knocked on doors and spread the word, hoping to secure a school board more in tune with the needs of teachers. On election day, all three of the WNEA recommended candidates were elected.

Throughout this process, WNEA had continued to work to change the imposed negotiations process in the negotiations themselves. On April 9, district representatives entered the negotiations and stated that they believed the process had reached an impasse and that the administration would recommend a change in the process at the upcoming board meeting. On April 17, the new Wentzville school board voted, at the administration’s recommendation, to recognize WNEA as the exclusive bargaining representative for teachers in the district.

With the logjam created by the imposed process broken, WNEA and the district were able to return to the table and successfully negotiate a package of improvements in salary and other benefits for all Wentzville teachers. The core of that package is a six percent teacher salary increase. MSTA followed this positive outcome by suing the school district in an attempt to block the negotiated raise in salaries. The MSTA lawsuit sought a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the improved salary schedule. On April 30 the circuit court denied MSTA’s request for the TRO that blocked the raises. The following day the school board voted to accept the agreement. Not only did WNEA succeed in winning a real collective bargaining process in Wentzville, but it was able to prove that real bargaining can result in a productive, efficient relationship and in agreements that win real improvements for teachers.

Local Capacity
All of these successes have a thread in common. That is the critical role of local members and leaders in winning collective bargaining campaigns. MNEA’s strong tradition of success in collective bargaining, its access to a nationwide network of bargaining resources, and its experienced, expert staff are all important. However, there is no substitute for strong local capacity when it comes to collective bargaining. Local capacity is the combination of people, skills and resources that an MNEA local association can bring to a campaign or other effort at the local level. It is the grounding of local power where it belongs, with local leaders and members. MNEA is moving aggressively to continue building local capacity.

by Patrick Harvey
MNEA director of field services and organizing