Celebrating Labor-Management Collaboration: The Literature Grows

A year ago, I began a bibliography of every web and print resource I could find on the subject of labor-management collaboration.  I was worried that heading into the U.S. Department of Education’s Labor –Management Conference in Denver, participants would lack the background and context to deal with the ideas and practices they would encounter.

Initially, I did only web resources, and could find just seventeen.  It was a sparse literature.  Over the ensuing year I added several books, including classics like United Mindworkers and Getting to Yes.  I added the research we performed for the Denver LMC.  It still looked pretty sparse to me.

Suddenly, there has been a small, but exciting explosion of publications on the subject. 

Recently, Education Week published a special report on labor-management collaboration entitled “Joining Forces: Moving district-union negotiations beyond bread-and-butter issues”.  With this report, labor management collaboration has gone mainstream.  But leading up to this breakthrough, there have been several other publications of note that have significantly expanded the literature.

“Improving Student Learning Through Collective Bargaining” By Adam Urbanski (Harvard Education Letter May/June 2011) Urbanski, the brilliant local president of the Rochester, NY NYSUT affiliate,  and cofounder of the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN) writes of the use of continuous  and expanded scope bargaining to promote student learning.

SRI International and J. Koppich & Associates published “Peer Review: Getting Serious About Teacher Support and Evaluation”  This paper reaches three important conclusions based on in-depth analysis of two established Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) programs in California: 1) Peer support and evaluation can and should coexist.  2) PAR is a rigorous alternative to traditional forms of teacher evaluation and development. 3) PAR leads to better collaboration between districts and unions.

The NEA Today Summer 2011 issue had a cover story entitled “Change Agents: Union led collaboration is driving success in schools across America.”  The story profiles several locals which employed the traditional levers of unionism to benefit student learning.  I was particularly struck by the story about the Dayton local employing the grievance process to acquire textbooks for special needs students.  This aligns with John Wilson’s call for use of expanded scope bargaining to achieve social justice in his farewell speech at the 2011 RA in Chicago.

Richard Elmore’s I Used to Think….and Now I Think is a brilliant meditation on policy by 20 leading education reformers.  Among the many wise and provocative essays two stand out with regard to the subject at hand:

Brad Jupp’s “Rethinking Unions’ Roles in Ed Reform” takes on union reform from a systems perspective.  Jupp, who as Denver Classroom Teachers Association lead negotiator was one of the architects of Denver’s ground breaking ProComp strategic compensation system, tackles the issue of union reform from a systems perspective.  He writes, “If we are to see teacher union affiliates take a leading role in improving our schools, we must begin to ask some questions about how they are designed.”  He posits that unions are well designed to “get the results they are presently getting.”  Several pointed questions encourage repurposing unions to support the success of the overall educational enterprise: great student learning.

Mark Simon, former president of the Montgomery County MD NEA affiliate, and a TURN leader, contributed “High Stakes Progressive Teacher Unionism.”  He writes, “Teacher Unions have a responsibility to advocate not just in the narrow self-interest of their dues paying members, but in the public interest, from a teacher’s perspective.”

But Joining Forces really excited me when I saw it this month.  Here is a national education policy newspaper highlighting the difficult work successfully pursued by unions and districts across the country.   From New Haven to Memphis to Los Angeles and Lucia Mar , CA, the articles highlight unions and board as they grapple with the art and science of collaboration, wrapped around tough issues like Value Added Methods, the Teacher Advancement Program, and new forms of compensation.  Included is a great introduction/overview and a timeline.  This is a must read to get the history and flavor of Labor-Management Collaboration.

Oh yes - hot off the presses: Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning - 2011 Report.  The NEA Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching (CETT) just published their report chock full of union reform recommendations.  More on that later.

Last February at the Denver LMC Arne Duncan spoke of igniting a movement that would make labor-management collaboration the norm.  Speaking as a union leader, on the subject of labor-management collaboration I support the Department of Education - and the CETT.   The current wave of significant research and publication leads me to believe the vision is getting traction.

What other publications should I add to this list or to my Union Reform Resources Page?

One More Thing Brill Got Wrong

On pages 35 and 36 of Class Warfare, Steven Brill analyzes teacher salary increases in New York City that resulted from Albert Shanker’s leadership of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).  His numbers look like this:

Table 1 New York City teacher stating salaries 1953-2007

Year	salary
1953	$    2,600
1962	$    5,300
1969	$  10,950
2007	$  45,530

From this, Brill concludes, “By 2007….the starting salary would be $45,530.00, or more than eight times 1962’s $5300.”  Evidently Brill wants to spark outrage that teacher unionism would lead to outrageous increases in starting salaries.  In taking this cheap shot, he missed a far more interesting story.  To uncover that story, we need to be able to compare salaries apples for apples.  To do this I used a CPI Inflation Calculator.  Adjusting for inflation, the numbers look like this:

Table 2 New York City teacher starting salaries in 2007 dollars

Year	salary	2007 dollars	change
1953	$    2,600.00	$      20,190.61
1962	$    5,300.00	$      36,387.83	80%
1969	$  10,950.00	$      61,863.62	70%
2007	$  45,530.00	$      45,530.00	-26%

This is an interesting story.  The first UFT contract in 1962 resulted in a starting salary 80% higher than Albert Shanker’s starting salary in 1953.  By 1969, the starting salary increased an additional 70%, representing increases averaging 12% each year.  But between 1969 and 2007 starting salaries actually declined 26% in real dollar terms.

At the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Conference last summer, Arne Duncan gave a speech in which he said:

Last year, McKinsey did a study comparing the U.S. to other countries and recommending—among other things—that we change the economics of the profession, pointing out that entry-level salary in the high 30's and an average ceiling in the high 60's will never attract and retain the top talent. We must think radically differently.  We should also be asking how the teaching profession might change if salaries started at $60,000 and rose to $150,000. 

The UFT had achieved those starting salaries in 1969.  I think the question of why a starting salary that would genuinely attract talent to the profession declined 26% over the next 38 years is a fascinating question, one worth pondering.  Rather than offer any glib speculations, I prefer to continue the story….

Starting salaries only tell part of the story when analyzing a single salary schedule.  I articulated my views on the single salary elsewhere on this blog.  Let’s turn to the top level salary and the ratios between top level and starting salaries for a fuller picture.

Table 3 Top level NYC salaries in 2008 dollars

Year	Top level (T)	% Increase	Starting (S)	Ratio (T:S)
1962	$69,411		$37,330	1.86
1969	$99,438	43%	$64,238	1.55
2008	$100,049	1%	$45,530	2.20

  

From 1962 to 1969 top level salaries increased 43%.  Because starting salaries rose 70% in the same time period, the ratio fell from 1.86 to 1.55.  In the ensuing 39 years top level salaries were virtually flat, but because starting salaries fell 26% the ratio increased radically to 2.2.

As a negotiator I was trained that an indexed salary schedule with a 2:1 ratio is ideal.  I do not think that a 2:1 ratio is a good thing if it means that starting salaries are cut.  Why? Because a dollar you receive today, especially in the current political environment is worth a lot more than an IOU.

The ratio that Arne Duncan proposed in his speech is 2.5.  What this means is that the UFT achieved what the Secretary of Education is recommending for a starting salary way back in 1969, and they approached his recommended ratio in the 21^st century, but because this was achieved through reductions in starting salaries, they did not achieve these things at the same time.  I know this involves an anachronism, but bear with me.

If you’ve managed to follow me to this point, I congratulate you.  I’ve seized on a very minute piece of Brill’s story, but I’ve been pondering it for months.  I freely admit that it’s an arcane point, but one worth mulling.  If teachers are to be compensated like the professionals that they are, why was the most powerful local in the country, the UFT, unable to roll together a salary schedule combining both a livable wage for beginners and top level salaries commensurate with professionalism? 

I think this is a fascinating historical question, the consideration of which may be illuminating for union leaders going forward.

The next lines of Duncan’s speech are interesting to consider in light of this question

We must ask and answer hard questions on topics that have been off limits in the past like staffing practices and school organization, benefits packages and job security—because the answers may give us more realistic ways to afford these new professional conditions.  If teachers are to be treated and compensated as the true professionals they are, the profession will need to shift away from an industrial-era blue-collar model of compensation to rewarding effectiveness and performance.

As a union leader and as a socialist I maintain a healthy skepticism here.  The devil is in the details.  The devil is also in the question of whether the practitioner’s voice will be decisive in these matters.  We can see from the gutting of regulations for for-profit colleges that in the current environment money dominates education policy in particular and politics in general.  But for that fact, I would be a lot more receptive to the secretary’s challenge.

If teachers and our unions can seize upon these matters of “topics that have been off limits in the past” and shape them in ways that work for students and workers, there may be a way forward here.  But it will take a constitutional amendment negating Citizens United to make it possible.

Just some things to ponder….