No major political figure in the state today other than perhaps the new governor, Chris Christie, appears ready to tackle and finally act on a significant public policy question. Can hundreds of local school boards without the financial, professional and legal resources available to them effectively compete today at the bargaining table with unions supported by powerful state and national affiliates?
Put another way, do the current rules and practices of the bargaining process favor one side — the unions — far more than the other and thus undermine the larger public interest?
A strenuous debate on this question is long overdue. If the new administration intends to respond to the outcry of resentment about the rising burden of property taxes, it needs to examine carefully the costs of local school district labor contracts. The most direct way to address this issue is to look at the actual dynamics of local collective bargaining, i.e., how it plays itself out in most cases, and then change some of the rules that govern it.
Politically, this is an issue replete with danger, since powerful organizations, namely the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) and its affiliates, would see such a move as inimical to their members’ interests and fight it vigorously.
Still, in my view, only a bold and dramatic approach to altering the local negotiations landscape will produce the kind of results that will reduce the crushing tax burden on the citizens of this state and restore some semblance of the balance to the local negotiations process.
As first a student of and later as a participant in the bargaining process for nearly 40 years, let me offer a brief historical perspective.
Over the objections of Democratic Gov. Richard Hughes, in 1968, the state Legislature established a formal process to allow government bodies and unions to jointly set salaries, benefits and other terms and conditions of employment. The law essentially forbade many unilateral actions that public employers could often make without the ability of their employees to challenge many of them.
The 1968 law also substantially raised organized employees’ expectations, and these have not abated in the more than 40 years the law has been in effect.
The law immediately took effect without adequate opportunity for school boards to prepare for what they would face. Unlike the NJEA and its affiliates, most local school boards were woefully unprepared to participate effectively in this new process known as “collective negotiations.”
Except for a handful of districts, boards encountered aggressive union negotiators far better trained and skilled in the process than the typical school board member. The first contracts agreed to by local school boards were often based on the NJEA Sample Agreement used at the time by local affiliates and included provisions covering subjects such as grievance procedures, teacher work year and work day, unpaid time off, leaves of absences, extra compensation, to name but a few.
Agreements today still resemble in format and content the ones that were first negotiated in the late 1960s with one major exception — their costs have risen exponentially.
It is still astonishing to hear public employee unions talking and acting as though we are still in the pre-1968 era, often describing during labor disputes that their members are being treated as second-class citizens unappreciated by their employers and the public at large.
To their credit, these unions have done an impressive job convincing not only their members, but many politicians and the public that the collective bargaining process as it now exists is essential to protecting employees’ interests.
Although the bargaining law accomplished its primary purpose, creating a framework for the settlement of labor disputes, it has done so at a large cost. Legislative members in 1968 could never have anticipated the enormous strength public unions have now acquired as evidenced by generous settlements at the local level and additional legal rights granted at the state level.
The result has created a reversal of roles where public employers have clearly become the weaker party in this bilateral relationship.
Even those school boards willing to take a strong position at the bargaining table by seeking significant changes in benefits (for example, requiring employees to contribute toward health care premiums) will very likely face fierce union opposition. Union concessions in this area and others normally come slowly and incrementally, if at all. And when they are made, they often are more symbolic than financially substantive.
Major breakthroughs in bargaining are thus rare. The greater the concession sought by a school board, the greater the potential for confrontation and conflict with the union and the greater likelihood of disruption to the school district’s operations. The public often does not understand this dynamic, which leaves school boards on the defensive, trying to explain why they were not more successful in achieving their bargaining goals.
Local board of education members themselves may not be without their own contradictory and conflicting behaviors. Although elected to serve the public, some find their interests too closely aligned with those with whom they bargain. They may often get elected with the strong support of unions.
At the state level, union support is often a lifeline for the political survival of many members of the Legislature. The reality is that employees, at least at the local level, may be electing the very people with whom they negotiate their own labor contracts.
The bargaining law today needs to ensure that a more reasonable balance of power at the bargaining table exists. The imbalance exists because one party — the union — has greater power to impose its will on public employers than the other way around.
Unions’ use of well-established tactics intended to place pressure on school districts to concede to their demands is commonplace. These may involve holding public demonstrations, promoting negative publicity about a school board and occasionally the community, promoting the defeat or election of particular board members, engaging in personal acts, using the legal process to intimidate, and even threatening various types of job actions, including a strike.
There is no reason to believe that the current system is self-correcting, that the law of supply and demand, the dismal shape of the current economy, or the high unemployment rate, will materially change the local public employment bargaining environment. Most local school districts are simply outgunned, out-financed and are all too often susceptible to enormous pressure from their employees and supporters.
The solution lies not with any change likely to occur at the local level, where most tax dollars are spent. It must occur at the state level. If the Governor is truly interested in reversing the direction of the cost of local government, he and the Legislature must come together to fix the bargaining law.
Some suggested reforms are worth considering. First, bargaining units at the local school district level are often broadbased and include teachers, clerical employees, bus drivers and custodians, giving these units enormous bargaining leverage over a local entity. Small units focused on specific job functions would make for a more evenhanded relationship.
Also, the right of public employers to impose their last, best offer, a right taken away from them in 2003 by the Legislature and former Gov. James McGreevey, diminished school board power and should be restored to offset increased union bargaining power.
Reasonable state controls should be put in place to limit generous unpaid time off provisions that contain hidden consequences both in terms of costs and productivity. Additionally, changes that would affect the cost of health benefits have occurred very slowly. If state officials believe that all public employees, including school employees, should share the cost of health benefits premiums as state workers now do, then they ought to mandate it through legislative action.
Revisions to the bargaining law must further include specific directions to factfinders and arbitrators involved in the resolution of labor disputes to give greater weight to key economic indicators such as the cost of living, the unemployment rate, the decline in housing prices.
Finally, unions engaging in certain collective actions against a school district, including work slowdowns and stoppages, should be susceptible to fines through the courts and revocation of their access to automatic dues deduction privileges.
Change to the collective negotiations process can be only effected at the local level by action taken at the state level. And that requires enormous political courage, a lack of which has been in abundance for years when it comes to standing up against the strength of public employee unions. The public interest, defined in today’s terms, is different than it was when the bargaining law was passed in 1968. Amending the bargaining law to reflect today’s different realities would be a good start.
Dr. Marc Gaswirth is the assistant superintendent of schools with the Marlboro K-8 School District. His views are his alone and do not necessarily represent those of his employer, the Marlboro Board of Education, or its members.