In New Hampshire, taxpayers have the power to approve or reject any collective bargaining agreement between a local school board and a teachers union.
This allows citizens to see up front just how much a teachers’ contract – which is typically filled with step raises and pricey health insurance premiums – will cost them, and make their decisions accordingly.
For the past two years, taxpayers in the Exeter school district have used their power to vote down the district’s proposed contract with the Exeter Education Association, the local teachers union.
Sensing that the third try wasn’t going to be the charm, the EEA decided to play hardball with the community. In a move that was about as subtle as a Lady Gaga concert, the union placed an ad in the Exeter News-Letter, telling the community that a “yes” vote on the teachers’ contract would:
“Preserve: After-school clubs and activities, prom and other dances, after-hours parent contact opportunities, senior week, parent night and open house, private school and college recommendations, community support activities and after school academic support.”
If the voters said “no” again, the insinuation was clear: Teachers would no longer be willing to participate in those extra activities, and they would no longer exist.
Voters ended up approving the new contract, but many were not impressed with the union’s thinly veiled threat to do the absolute minimum amount of work required by their contract.
“Though a union leader claimed the ad was not a threat, the ad clearly threatened that after-school activities, the prom and college recommendations could disappear if Exeter Region Cooperative School District voters … didn’t approve Article 4 – the teachers’ contract,” the SeaCoastOnline.com wrote in an editorial.
“Essentially, the union used students as pawns in the local election. Although the contract passed … by a vote of 2,271-1,991, we believe teachers are lucky their stunt didn’t backfire. The tone of the ad could certainly still leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the voting public.”
But don’t expect the EEA to offer any apologies for its boorish behavior. Not only does the union walk away from this with annual pay raises of 2.15 percent, it has also learned that extortion works. New Hampshire voters can expect copycat behavior from other teacher unions.
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One Comment
I am a public school teacher (ret), school board trustee (ret) and parent. I have no love for teachers’ unions, having seen the negative impact they have on almost everything they touch. However, even as a well-known opponent of public sector unions, I do support “work to contract”. Is there another profession (paid hourly) that ‘gives it away for free’? Even given the contractually paid “extra duty hours”, (usually 12-15 hours yearly in Ca.) my coworkers easily contributed 30+ times that amount. Continuing to expect teachers to work 2-3 unpaid hours every day just gives the public and the administration a very skewed perception of how much can be accomplished in one day. If teachers work far beyond their contractual day, every day, (and most do), they will never get the professional respect they deserve – from others and from themselves. But worse, administration will continue to pile more and more on their daily plates – in the form of staff meetings, parent meetings, parent phone calls (usually takes 3+ attempts before parent is reached), paperwork, assessments, collaborative planning, projects, tutoring, professional ‘development’ (aka ‘brainwashing’), more detailed and time-consuming grading rubrics, more progress reports, more planning for ‘differentiated instruction’, and MUCH more time on discipline documentation. Even for SuperTeacher, there are still only 24 hours in a day, and we DO have homes and families who would like some of our time.