Showing the teacher unions who’s the boss
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 By David HansenWe read with disappointment the progress of teacher (and nurse, and janitor, and lunchroom employee) union contract negotiations in Hilliard, Ohio which concluded earlier this month.
The Hilliard union employed the usual tactics of industrial era labor conflict including ’work-to-rule’ and filing harrassing unfair-labor-practices charges, all of which only reinforce how obsolete and obstructionist teacher unions are in the 21st Century.
And while Ohio’s economy founders, jobs flee the state and income stagnates, the Hilliard school board eventually inked a deal costing some $2.5 million more a full year in increased taxes and fees for citizens and families.
EIA’s Mike Antonucci reports on a different way to play the game with unions:
Grand Rapids School Board Fights Fire with Fire. I have often wondered why school boards unilaterally disarm in the face of various job actions, like work-to-rule, slowdowns and no confidence votes. These things have little practical value, but they are very effective as stunts to get attention.
The school board in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has apparently decided to grab hold of the fight-fire-with-fire-turnabout-is-fair-play-sauce-for-the-goose-goes-around-comes-around clichés in its latest contract battle with the teachers’ union. The board took a no confidence vote in Grand Rapids Education Association president Paul Helder.
“It’s just disrespectful, not to me, I don’t care about that,” Helder said. “It’s not my job to make them happy; they’re not supposed to have confidence in me one way or the other. But it’s disrespectful to the confidence the members put in me when they elected me. It’s disrespectful to the work they do.”
The board also decided to stop deducting and transferring member dues to the union. Until the dispute is settled, the union will have to collect its dues from the members individually.
Note to local Grand Rapids news: Send TV crews along with the union reps as they perform this task. I promise excellent footage.
Are there any Ohio school boards willing to play hard ball with their unions? We’d like to hear about it!
Tags: Education, Local Government, Michigan, Public Employees, Teacher Unions
