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Collective Bargaining Repeal; best thing that ever happened to Wisconsin schools
By State Senator Glenn Grothman

The repeal of much of Wisconsin’s collective bargaining law with regard to many of Wisconsin’s public employees has not been adequately explained. This repeal will do more to improve the quality and lower the cost of Wisconsin government than anything else we’ve done. There are approximately 275,000 government employees in the state of Wisconsin. About 72,000 work for the state, 38,000 for cities and villages, 48,000 for counties, 10,500 (full time equivalent) for technical collages, and 105,229 for schools.

Only half of state employees are unionized, but almost all school employees are. As you can see, the biggest impact will be on Wisconsin’s schools. Since my office has received the most complaints from school teachers, let’s look at how collective bargaining affects both the cost and quality of our schools.

Under current law, virtually all conditions of employment have to be spelled out in a collectively bargained agreement. Consequently, it is very difficult to remove underperforming school teachers. It may take years of documentation and thousands of dollars in attorney fees to fire a bad teacher. Is it right that two or three classes of second graders must endure a bad teacher while waiting for documentation to be collected? Just as damaging is the inability to motivate or change the mediocre teacher who isn’t bad enough to fire. Good superintendants are stymied when they try to improve a teacher who is doing just enough to get by.

While most teachers care about their students, some only “teach to the contract.” An elementary school teacher’s contract may require just seven hours and forty-five minutes a day in school. If the principal wants to have a meeting after school to discuss curriculum, or requests a meeting with parents of a troubled student, a teacher could say that this is not in the contract. Recall the recent flare-up when Fond du Lac teachers objected to having to work eight hour days.

Another problem affecting our schools’ quality is that payment for individual teachers is not based on merit but on a union negotiated pay schedule. A mediocre teacher with a master’s degree and additional college credits gets more money than a superior teacher who doesn’t have as many college credits. This is clearly unfair, and destroys healthy incentives that would encourage teachers to be more effective.

If enrollment drops, teachers must be let go. In practice, this means that collective bargaining causes the better teachers with less seniority to be laid off. This is another example of a union contract punishing our children.

It has been well reported that, under collective bargaining, districts have been stuck with the teacher union insurance company which can cost $3,000 or more per teacher than a plan that is virtually identical to that which another company is willing to provide. Switching to Health Savings Accounts like the private sector is out of the question.

A teacher may be entitled to thirteen paid personal days. All this for employees who may only be required to work 190 days a year in the first place. There is also the cost of time spent negotiating seventy page contracts.

Clearly, collective bargaining penalizes schools and students, costs an exorbitant amount of money, and lowers the quality of education in Wisconsin. The same story could be told for tech schools, cities, counties, and the state.

Franklin Roosevelt originally said that unions and government do not mix. After reviewing some union contracts, I can see why. Jimmy Carter, a Democrat backed by a Democratic Congress, greatly reduced collective bargaining for federal employees via the Civil Service Reform Act. Even President Obama has not tried to restore these rights. Massachusetts Democrats recently passed a bill divesting government employees of the power to collectively bargain most health-care benefits.

The cost savings will be significant at all levels of government. Cost savings to schools from having school  employees pay a small part of their health insurance and pension costs more than offset the mild reduction in education funding. But, the most important benefit will be an improvement in the quality of our schools as efficiency, personal decisions, compensation decisions and methods of teaching children will not be subject to
union meddling and obstruction. Contact me if you have any opinions on the above at Sen.Grothman@legis.wisconsin.gov.

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