The most amusing thing about ongoing teacher contract negotiations in Tacoma – in any school district, really – is how groups are condemned for doing exactly what they should be doing.
The Tacoma Education Association is bashed by some for thinking about the pay, benefits and working conditions of its members.
District administration is criticized by others for trying to spend less on personnel in the face of budget cuts and insist on contract changes demanded by state law.
And a new coalition of parents, businesses and school reform organizations is attacked for interfering in negotiations to further their common reform goals. Even Bill and Melinda Gates get a scolding.
Such are the complexities of labor relations in a governmental setting. On one level these are private, one-on-one relationships between the employer and the union. On another level is an acknowledgement that the real boss is the public and both sides want parents and taxpayers behind them. To that end they portray themselves as thinking only of the kids and the other side as thinking only about money.
If negotiations are going well – more likely when cash isn’t tight and when politicians aren’t pushing thorny issues like tenure, evaluations and student achievement – both sides keep quiet.
“We’re not going to negotiate in the press” is the cliched response.
Only when things aren’t going well do the public relations machines fire up. Suddenly negotiating in the press becomes a good idea.
That could explain dueling newspaper columns by TEA President Andy Coons and Tacoma Superintendent Art Jarvis that blame the other side for delays that could lead to a strike.
Coons contrasts his volunteer negotiators with the district’s paid outside contractor. Jarvis suggests the TEA isn’t calling the shots by calling it “the Washington Education Association of Tacoma.”
This summer in Tacoma – like last summer in Seattle – the one-on-one relationship is being altered somewhat by a third party. Vibrant Schools Tacoma is a coalition of groups ranging from Stand for Children and Associated Ministries to the Black Collective and Peace Community Center. They don’t want to wait until the end and choose sides; they want to influence what the district and union are talking about.
When a similar effort was waged in Seattle, it had an effect in pushing reform issues, such as teacher assignment and better evaluations with consequences, into the contract. That came about partly because Seattle administrators and board members realized the Our Schools Coalition could be a force equalizer.
In Tacoma, however, the district hasn’t taken advantage of Vibrant School’s potential for altering the power relationship.
But just in case, some in the union have pushed the narrative that Vibrant Schools is phony, created by the Gates Foundation.
Certainly Gates has an interest in issues like better teacher evaluations that include measures of student performance. But to suggest that the League of Education Voters and Allen Renaissance Center haven’t been involved in these issues for years, to say the NAACP and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce are now being led around by Gates, is both condescending and politically risky.
Gates became interested in funding and encouraging the involvement of local reform groups because teacher unions had been so successful in winning public opinion during contract negotiations. Funding of local reform groups is meant to counter the skills of the WEA, which often comes into local contract negotiations with money, staff support and an agenda.
WEA should help the TEA because the state union knows each local contract influences negotiations in other districts.
But at the same time, the Gates Foundation and state reform groups are entitled to help Vibrant Schools. Staying out of local negotiations in the past has meant issues important to coalition members do not get addressed in the contract.
Complaining about the strategies and motives of the other side has to happen, I guess. But getting over it and engaging in win-some/lose-some compromise has to happen as well – hopefully before Sept. 1.
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
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