Well, There’s an Agreement…But…
December 3rd, 2007So the Keene Sentinel broke the news that teachers and the school board managed to come to a contract agreement. In March it goes before the voters.
Now all they need to do is agree to it.
Before they do, let’s be honest. This is a lousy contract. I say that not to impugn anyone who worked on it, or those who lent their voices to create it. There was struggle to make it happen, and in the end there was a compromise.
I’m tired of compromising in education.
Good enough, for right now, just get it done, it will be okay, we’ll make it work, tomorrow is a new day—I’m disgusted with the language of surrender, furious at settling for “good enough.” I’ve seen the district bend for the loud minority, and I’ve seen teachers walk out of this with nothing more than what they already had and were denied.
I want to make this clear—the primary benefit of this contract is teachers are put back on the correct step. I get a raise next near, and I’m pleased. But I should have had it before. My pay is going up $600 a year compared to the old contract, and though that does mean that I might be able to afford an iPhone, it doesn’t mean I’ll be buying a house. The rest of that raise is nothing I wouldn’t have received under the old contract, doesn’t recoup the money I’ve lost, and that old contract did have an evergreen clause in it. The fact that voters were not made aware of that clause is the fault of the district, not the teachers, but we paid for it. ¹
In exchange for a step raise—something every other school district in the country does—teachers will eventually pay for 20% of their health insurance. Given the cost of health care, I’m utterly certain the $600 in this contract will be quickly chewed up. It doesn’t even keep up with the standard cost of living—2-3%.
We won’t even discuss the loss of early retirement. It doesn’t affect me, but it does my friends. I think losing several hundred thousand dollars worth of income is more than enough to create a great deal of seething anger. I doubt there’s much happiness among those who have worked for years serving the children of the district. I’m sure it strikes them as a lousy way to be repaid for twenty or thirty years of work.
So let’s not call this a win. This is a step forward, and it’s better than where we were. It certainly lays bare the claims of the Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association that the teachers are nothing but greedy, over-paid leeches sucking on the taxpayers in the district. In this case, we’re the ones who gave, we’re the ones who took it on the chin, we’re the ones who turned the cheek.
This sounds like grousing. It’s not. I understand this is a tough time, we’re at war, we’re making sacrifices. What bothers me is we’ve brought contracts before the voters before, and they’ve been shot down.
I’m not shocked. Looking at the numbers, it’s clear where the problem is: ²
The Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association may claim that it speaks for the district, but its home is in Richmond—along with many others who don’t believe in public education. Mixed with the apparent apathy of the Swanzey voters, and the result is the mess we’ve been in for the last few years.
For the record, Swanzey always votes to approve spending measures. It’s just shot down by the rest of the towns. If it voted in proportion to its population, however, then we’d have a contract. Chances are, we’d have had a new school back in 1994—which would have been smart, since New Hampshire was offering to match funds.
Getting this contract passed is the start of repairing the problems in the district. It’s not going to get the school off probation, and it may not be enough to keep good staff the district has.
It is a step in the right direction. It is the result of much hard work. It is the best deal the towns are ever going to see, and they’d be fools not to vote for it—but there are a lot of fools in the world. But it’s not a panacea, and the worst thing that could happen is the people of the towns to not see the teachers out front, to not hear about the issues, and to think all is now fine.
To be effective, the “sleeping giant” needs to wake up. If it rolls over, takes a trip to the bathroom, and then goes back to bed, it helps no-one—least of all our kids.
1 That same “evergreen” clause is in the current contract right now. Just in case the next judge decides to believe the voters were not informed, I’ll make it plain here. Very simply, that if we don’t sign another contract at the time the current one ends, then the terms in this contract continue. Just so we all understand. ↺
2 Thanks to Mike Hoefer at Kids First Monadnock! who originally compiled the numbers. I got them in a rather round-about way, which is the fun of email. ↺
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
RH,
I can understand the points that you make.
However, there are always two sides to every coin - and when discussing negotiations…lots of nooks and crannies too.
I think we can both agree - or at least I hope we can both agree - that the most important task now is getting information out so the voter can make an informed decision.
I would also like to state for those readers out there… that negotiating a contract isn’t as simple as some might think. It’s not black or white, it’s shades of gray and loads of compromise - like it or not.
This particular contract is the product of many bright people struggling and debating for months over stacks and stacks of data… hard work on both sides - and ending in a 12 hour marathon mediation. Couple this with the difficulty of constantly challenging ourselves to try to imagine what the voters might see as reasonable so the whole production won’t go up in smoke in March… frankly…it’s maddening.
The only thing worse… is to hear people publicly bash the effort without having spent the grueling hours in the thick of it.
IMHO… You’re right, this contract is not a panacea. But we have a contract that both side ratified. I think its time we should stop debating on who gets the best deal out of it, and instead all work together to promote this contract, because simply put… it’s what we have.
Which is far more than what we had - and we worked together to get it. Yes compromising all the way.
Life is a series of compromises.
A very smart man told me once as I entered my first negotiation contract session…
(ok he was a lawyer, but I like him)
it’s a successful contract if neither side feels like they’ve won…
So reading your thoughts… and hearing those of some of the board members… I think I’d have to say, by that standard, what we have here Mr. H… is a successful contract negotiations.
I would also encourage you.. and others with a similar mindset… to join the negotiations team. You seem to have a lot to say regarding negotiations, but saying it on your blog is not the most effective use of your voice.
Also, pointing out all the deficiencies in something you ask others to promote certainly doesn’t “co-create a common public world” - unless that world is “the mess” you pointed out earlier. Then by all means forge ahead… full steam. But please.. let me off here.. frankly I’m tired of this ride.
Colline Dreyfuss
December 4th, 2007 at 2:49 am
Wow. Reading this post and Colline’s response from the school board’s side of the issue, I’ve rarely been so glad to be working in the public sector. In the past several years, I haven’t negotiated anything - from vendor contracts to a personal lease agreement - without first re-reading “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.” And I imagine that authors Roger Fisher and William Ury, staunch proponents of “fairness and principled negotiation,” would be horrified at the definition of a successful contract as “neither side feels like they’ve won….”
The goal, of course, should be to negotiate from a position of fairness to both sides. Yes, that will involve compromise on both sides - but over the details, not the feeling that each side is meeting the other with fairness and an understanding of their position. From my reading of it, RJH’s post was not so much a condemnation of the proposed contract as the UNFAIRNESS of having to fight for compensation and step raises to which the teachers were - “in fairness” - already entitled.
And there’s the rub. The fairness issue is not, as it would be in the business world, solely a dispute with the other negotiating party, the school board. After all, the board has negotiated and presented contracts previously that the teachers had agreed to (indicating the contract was at least a reasonable compromise), and which presumably the board (or a majority thereof) felt were fair to the district’s taxpayers. But the voters rejected those contracts.
The message the majority of voters sent to teachers? “This contract is not fair to us.” At least, that’s the perception - and certainly a demoralizing one for teachers. In reality, it may be a mix of libertarians rejecting support for public education, a contingent who believe teachers are overpaid and the contract can squeeze a few more pennies out of these “public salaries”, and finally some (perhaps including parents with students in the school system) trying to control their property taxes through one of the few things they can control - the school budget. (A perfect example - a taxpayer who told me: “We didn’t get to vote on city construction, so I’m voting down what we can control - the school budget.”)
Against this backdrop, it’s hard for the school board to meet the teachers’ expectations on negotiation, because they are going in with one hand tied behind their back… irregardless of their own feelings about the teachers’ position, they have to also shape something that the voters will accept. And then both sides have the frustrating wait to see whether, this time, the voters will accept the results of all this hard work and compromise.
In any negotiation, it helps to be face-to-face with the party demanding compromise. In this instance, one of the parties is ultimately negotiating from the safe anonymity of the voting booth, where saying “no” is as easy as saying “yes.” How unfortunate.
Good luck to everyone involved. Hopefully this time around we’ll see voters who have been educated on the issues getting to “yes.”