Teacher union sues Bayless, Springfield school districts

By Audrey Spalding

All is not well in Missouri public schools. Teachers are filing lawsuits, protesting school board meetings (or attending en masse), and letting their contracts lapse. Though the details are different at the Bayless, Springfield, and Lindbergh school districts, the theme is the same: Many educators seem to be driven by a sense of distrust stemming from disagreements with their administrators and school boards over the powers and appropriate role of teacher unions.

Teacher unions are like any other labor union: Union representatives negotiate salary and working conditions with employers. Theoretically, by banding together, teachers have more clout in the negotiation process than they would as individuals.

But Missouri has a unique wrinkle in its education system — some of its school districts allow multiple groups to act as teacher bargaining representatives.

“As far as I know, all other states pair collective bargaining with exclusivity,” Mike Antonnuci, director of the Education Intelligence Agency, wrote in an email.

The strength of multiple representation is that it could allow even teachers with minority viewpoints a seat at their district’s negotiation table. However, some school districts with multiple representation agreements allow only two teacher unions bargaining rights.

Missouri’s two main teacher unions are the Missouri National Educators Association and the Missouri State Teachers Association. While the MSTA is only a statewide organization, the MNEA is the Missouri branch of a politically involved national union. In 2007, the Independence School District’s MNEA branch won a court case at the state Supreme Court that reaffirmed teachers’ right to collectively bargain with their employers.

The Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling appears to have inspired other branches of the MNEA to attempt to become their district’s sole bargaining representative. This year, the Bayless and Springfield branches of MNEA have filed lawsuits against their districts, citing the 2007 court ruling. Both Springfield and Bayless have multiple representation bargaining agreements (download the Bayless lawsuit here, and the Springfield lawsuit here).

Bayless Superintendent Maureen Clancy-May said she hadn’t heard complaints about her district’s bargaining process until after the court ruling.

“It was smooth sailing up until the time the lawsuit was filed,” she said. Clancy-May, who has been Bayless’ superintendent for six years, said she suspects more school districts will face court action. “I understood that MNEA was searching throughout the state for viable test cases,” she said. “I understand they’re not done. More lawsuits will be filed.”

Brentwood MNEA President Ed Wright acknowledged that the MNEA is looking for cases, but is doing so because lawmakers weren’t stepping in to make policy.

“Like the [Missouri School Board Association], we’re looking at places where policy can be determined by court,” he said. Wright also acknowledged that the MNEA had discussed suing the Brentwood district.

“We talked very seriously about it,” he said. “But in a small district, people don’t want to raise a fuss.”
Even districts with a single representation agreement in place have been affected by the 2007 court ruling. At the Lindbergh School District, teachers and administrators continue to negotiate contract terms, though they usually finish negotiations by March 1, Lindbergh Assistant Superintendent Richard Francis said.

After what Lindbergh Vice President Vic Lenz called “adversarial” contract negotiations, teachers and administrators gathered again on July 1 and spent two hours painstakingly going through 20 pages of their contract. The more contentious contract issues were set aside that day, and the negotiating team has at least eight more hours of negotiations to wade through.

The July 1 negotiations were much more congenial than previous negotiations, Lenz said. At one point during the earlier contentious negotiation process, about 200 people showed up at a school board meeting, he said, as a show of support for the Lindbergh NEA. Some were from other school districts, such as Parkway and Wentzville, said Francis.

At Lindbergh, the issue was not the type of representation — Lindbergh teachers have not requested multiple representation, said Francis — but whether the teachers’ contract should be expanded to include layoff procedures, the redistricting process, and grievance procedures, among other issues. Currently, the Lindbergh School Board can change those policies at its discretion. If included in the contract, the Lindbergh NEA branch and administrators would have to reach consensus in order to make changes.

Lindbergh, Bayless, and Springfield are likely not the only districts where the 2007 case has raised concerns about whether teacher unions are strong enough, or whether multiple representation is a legitimate form of collective bargaining. But unless the state legislature steps in, it looks as if Missouri’s courts will be the arbiter.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 3:48 pm. Both comments and pings are currently closed.