Teacher Union Showdown at Statehouse
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The Statehouse today is set for a showdown over House and Senate legislation that would extend binding arbitration to teacher contracts.
Binding arbitration is currently in effect for local police and fire unions.
Both state teacher unions—the state chapters of the American Federation of Teachers and the NEA—support the extension. But several citizen and taxpayer groups are launching a full-scale, 11th-hour PR and grassroots campaign to stop legislation that they say would turn over the final decisions on teacher contracts to unelected arbitrators, causing local tax rates to skyrocket.
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“It is shamefully irresponsible for this Legislature to be advancing binding arbitration for teacher contracts at the eleventh hour when our cities and towns are facing great fiscal stress,” said Harriet Lloyd, executive director of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition.
Last night, RISC issued an action alert over the legislation to its members and the press. Two other groups also sounded a warning—the state Tea Party and Operation Clean Government. Today, RISC and the Tea Party are having back-to-back press conferences at Statehouse—at 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. respectively—in a last ditch effort to defeat the legislation before the session closes for the year.
Teacher advocates say they are only asking for what fire and police are already receiving. “It’s worked for police. It’s worked for fire. It’s worked for correctional officers. It's worked for teachers in Connecticut,” said NEA Executive Director Bob Walsh. “It’s a fair way to resolve contracts.”
“Clearly when you have an impasse you need to have some mechanism to resolve that,” added AFT President Frank Flynn.
Both union leaders disputed claims that taxes would increase if the legislation passes. Flynn said the legislation takes into account the ability of a community to pay for the costs of a contract within the limits set by the statewide cap on property tax increases.
‘Steep property tax hikes’
But that cap can be raised by a supermajority vote of a local town or city council, noted Lisa Blais, spokeswoman for the Tea Party.
The General Assembly could also find itself under pressure to change the law, according to RISC. “Taxpayers are not guaranteed protection from steep property tax hikes from the tax cap because the Legislature can amend the cap, and if binding arbitration gets through, that cap won’t survive,” Lloyd added.
Blais also disagreed that binding arbitration had worked well for police and fire.
She pointed to Cranston, which in the late 1970s and 1980s granted free health insurance for retired firefighters, longevity pay for firemen, and minimum manning and holiday pay—all due to binding arbitration.
Tea Party ‘offended’ teachers have to pay union dues
Flynn dismissed the mounting opposition from the Tea Party and RISC. “They’re just anti-organized labor, anti-union, and anti-collective bargaining,” he told GoLocalProv.
Blais said the Tea Party actually does not necessarily oppose collectively bargaining. “We would much prefer right to work and we’re offended that teachers across the state are forced to pay dues to maintain their jobs in public schools,” she said.
Since collective bargaining was implemented for public sector unions in the 1960s, she said the pendulum has swung toward an extreme. At the very least, she said state law needs to define what issues are up for collective bargaining and which ones are not. “It’s high time we narrowed the scope of collective bargaining,” she said.
Blais said the battle over collective bargaining could have broader political ramifications for other key issues. “They’re fighting for this so hard we really think we’re not going to get anywhere with pension reform,” she said.
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