The Ann Arbor Education Association, the teachers' union representing
teachers in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, has voted to strike.  School in
Ann Arbor will not start tomorrow, as was originally scheduled.  The main
unresolved issue, according to today's Ann Arbor News, is salary.  AAEA
President Linda Carter says the district's offer for a pay raise was not
high enough, considering that there was what the Union calls a pay freeze
last year.  However, Robert Mosely, a school district administrator, says
there just isn't enough money in the budget to give the teachers the raise
they are asking for.  The school district has also in the past disputed
the union's claim that they took a pay freeze last year, since what the
district had considered to be a one time only bonus the year before last
was converted to a 2% "raise" last year.  The teachers voted on
Sunday to srtrike, and negotiations will restart tomorrow morning.

73 responses total.

AA/Ypsi 40 is linked to InBetween 52.

(I'm glad for the strike, for purely selfish reasons.)

(I hope the strike doesn't stretch for too long, but a couple of days
would be fine by me.)

While it's a bit of a relief not to have to go back to school tomorrow, I
wish the strike weren't happening.  I've had my summer vacation now, and I
was already to go back.  We're going to have to make up the time
somewhere, and I'd rather go back to school now than have it extended into
next summer when I would otherwise have graduated.

And of course parents are scrambling to make arrangements for child
care, or activities, etc. That's what we were doing this evening. We
also discussed, but did not resolve, why the negotiations (and strikes)
always come down to the last minute. Who is trying to pressure whom
with what?

The sad part about this is that there are so many people who would kill
to teach in a district like Ann Arbor even though they only get a 2%
raise.

I didn't always feel this way but at this point I feel Ann Arbor
teachers are quite well paid and their demand for a 4.5% raise, each year,
for two years, is excessive.  The average salary is something like $46,000
for *eight month's work*.  

My brother-in-law is at maximum salary and on the picket line.
At this point he's barely speaking to me.  But I think in his 
heart-of-hearts he agrees.

What's the latest on the strike?

        Pattie

They are out today. My daughter and I went to the Learning Center,
and she got some Algebra work books. Last I heard, she got stuck, so
went swimming instead. What a life.

(do you think the AAPS would react the same way if students went
on strike?)

Somehow I dount it.  What's this about a rumer about a court order to
settle by tuesday?  <dang dares to hope that maybe he can prepare for his
AP tests this year afterall>

Much has been said in the debate over the strike about there being no more
money in budgeted for a raise, thus making a raise impossible.  However,
the Union has been telling the board since before the budget was passed
that they would not accept as small a raise as was being budgeted for. 

(when was the last time the students had a raise in their
education? shouldn't *that* be budgeted for as well?)

YEAH!

I found it amusing and sad at the same time to read that Liz Brater hosted
a party for the striking teachers...

There shouldn't be any parties for *either* the teachers or the board.
I fault them equally.

I understand some of the reasons why the teachers are unhappy.  But I
know people who had to change their summer plans at great inconvenience to
be back on time -- they can't be really pleased.

One of the dynamics that goes into a strike is the danger to both parties that
the customers will take their  patronage someplace else.  But these folks have
a captive audience. I wonder, if I take my kids out of school for a week
midyear and call it a strike, will they just forgive the absence the way we're
going to have to forgive this stuff?

        You might have more credibility doing that if you were protesting
something specific and your kids, while out of school, were walking a
picket line out in front.  These teachers are not on vacation right now.
        One thing that has to be remembered in this is that this was not a
spontanious move by the teachers, nor is it something that would have
taken anybody who's been paying attention to the issues by surprize. 
Linda Carter, the union president, has been saying for several months,
since long before the budget without room for a bigger raise was passed,
that if more money wasn't budgeed for a raise a strike would be
inevitable.  What seems to have taken so many people by surprize now is
that the teachers actually followed through with what they said they were
going to do.
        It wouldn't be entirely fair to blame the current school board
either.  The current, more liberal, board replaced the former,
conservative, board after the budget was already pretty much a done deal. 
While it would not have been too hard to make room for teacher pay raises
when the rest of the budget was being torn apart anyway, it would have
been a very different matter for the new board to come in and, on the
spur of the moment, redo the budget that had just taken several months to
be made up, especially when they had to deal with allegations that the
election had been bought and paid for by the teachers' union at the same
time.
        What we have here, therefore, is a remnant of the former CBE
board.  They set the series of events in motion by turning a deaf ear to
the union's warnings of a strike.  That was then followed by their
replacements not realizing the seriousness of the situation in time,
coupled with the union's decision not to back down and accept that they
weren't getting a pay raise to keep pace with inflation because a mistake
had been made by not listening to them.  Afterall, if they accepted the
excuse that they couldn't get a raise because nobody had taken then
seriously when they asked for it, where would that leave them when they
ask for something in the future?

Since the money isn't there, does that mean that the schools won't open
at all this year?

Of course not, the money will be found.  In the past there was a
fund available, worth millions, for emergency needs, but that was
exhaused over the past few years.  They'll find the money but at
this point something will need to be cut, whether that's administrators
at the Balas Building, busing, maintenance...

Good summary in #17.

I just heard on the radio that a tentative agreement has been reached. 
More details as they become available.  Now I'd better go to bed incase
they open school tomorrow or something like that.

School will start tomorrow.

Really?  Cool.
Er, actually, maybe not ....

Nope, teachers voted it down.  School will not open tomorrow unless there is a
court order.

Yes, too bad.  I was hoping they had come up with something acceptable,
but it looks like they didn't.  I certainly hope the board doesn't ssink
so low as to go to court and force them to work rather than offering a
reasonable contract.

I wish the parties would decide to negotiate AND work at the same time.
I'm getting fed up.  I consider this an unexcused absence. <roz grumbles
and goes off into a corner to think up things to keep her kid busy with.>

The offer was (according to the paper) a one-year contract with a 3.1%
increase and some kind of new co-pays for insurance.  Was voted down
something like 400-300.

scg and I were talking about the strike during the last InBetween walk.
I'd decided that there was no way for the board and teacher's union to
agree to a contract given what they both want. My theory is that either
the teachers will settle for a small increase this year in exchange for a
larger, compensatory increase next year (read: multi-year contract) or
they will have to agree to binding arbitration. 

Here's a thought: would the AAPS hire scabs? I think it'd be an
*excellent* way to dump some of those teachers that are usually protected
by tenure. Besides, it's supposedly "illegal" for teachers to strike, and
it's the students who are "suffering" at this point.

Not that I'm terribly pleased with the Board's doings financially; did
Superintendent Simpson *really* create ****FOUR**** new administrative
positions? Sounds like pork to me.

The students are indeed suffering, at least some of them.  Our 7th grader
is disgusted with both the board and the teachers, at the moment (and so
are we)! But why do you suggest "to dump some of those teachers"? We have
found that most of our daughter's treachers are capable, concerned, and
very hard working. They have a labor grievance, which is a honorable,
democratic, right. In regard to the strike being "illegal" - that law
should be declared unconstitutional, and rescinded. You approve of
slavery? 

The proposed injunction sounds okay to me.  I sure don't want the
kids to have substitutes (how much real education do you suppose would
go on there?) nor do I want Ann Arbor's very able faculty canned.
Bujt the place to debate the legality of teacher strikes is in the
legislature, not in board discussions of whether or not to make the
teachers go back to work.  They should be teaching now, not in the
middle of next June when everyone wants out.

        And while we're at it, roz, the place to debate slavery 150 years
ago was in the legislature, right?  The Underground Railroad was illegal,
and therefore shouldn't have been allowed to operate. 
        I am normally the school board correspondent for The Communicator,
but I am so fed up with the school board at this point that I would not be
able to write an unbiased story about it.  Rather than trying to negotiate
in good faith with the teachers, the board has decided to go to court and
force the teachers to go back back to work, regardless of whether there is
a settlement or what the settlement might be.  If teachers don't have the
right to refuse to work when they aren't being paid enough, school boards
could decide to pay teachers minimum wage for their three hours and 45
minutes per day of formal instruction, with no benifits, and the teachers
wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.  Is that what I have to look
forward to as a teacher?
        As many of the anti-teacher people have been saying lately,
students have a right to be in school.  That doesn't mean that anybody has
the obligation to teach them when they don't agree to the terms of their
employment.  As dedicated as most teachers are, that doesn't mean they have
the obligation to starve, or to become slaves to people who think that
teachers are somehow less than human.  Like my teachers, I want to be back
in school right now.  But I don't want my teachers to be there only
because of a court order, not getting paid even what they consider to be
the minimum acceptable amount.

I have never considered striking to be an honorable thing to do, and AA
teachers are pretty darned far from slavery. I don't mind crossing picket
lines unless it's a civil rights issue, rather than a labor/wages issue.
And I'm not sure this is the right way to think, but somehow it bugs me
more when the strikers are teachers or nurses than any other sort of
employees.

Should police be allowed to strike or are they supposed to 
endure slavery from time to time out of the goodness of their
hearts?

Teaching is HARDLY slavery. If the teachers who are on strike don't want
to work for the amount that they are being offered [which isn't even
a bad amount, mind you], then there's no reason that the board shouldn't
do its best to find people who WILL work for what they are offering. I
don't think that's so unreasonable. The courts can't force the teachers
to work anymore than they can force you or I to pay for parking when
we drive into town.

BTW, I placed a call to the AAEA hotline. I felt it was informative and
I was glad I'd made the call. 996-0374/996-0297 will give you a recording
of the teachers' perspective on negotations. The recording I heard had
last been updated at 2 pm, and it said that discussions were in recess.

The right to strike arises to balance to power of the employer to be
arbitrary and capricious. Since the state educational system is a
monoply (administered by local boards, but still a monoply), teaching
professionals would have to leave to state to find another job. That's
too much power for any beauracracy.

I don't see why you're making that leap of logic, Rane. Granted, if *I*
were an employer, I don't think I'd want to hire someone that had been
fired for striking, unless I felt that the person's qualifications were
adequate enough to overlook such poor employer/employee relations, or
if I knew that the previous employer couldn't offer an adequate wage, 
and thus decided to fire rather than settle. In any case, I'd want to
hire the person best suited for the job, and I'd want to pay them at
a rate that would make them want to continue in the job, i.e., a rate
that says, "I value you as an employee, and this is what you're worth to
me". If any teachers were fired from the AAPS for striking, I don't
see any sort of bureacracy that would keep them from teaching 
elsewhere in the state. Sure, the firing wouldn't look all that great,
but that's a choice to be made.

BTW, it appears to me that the school board values its administrators
more than its teachers or its students. I point to the four new
administrative positions created and the cash incentives voted in for
the superintendent that amount to nearly $457,000. This is after only
one year of service, mind you.

I thought that the board meeting said that those 4 positions only cost around
$200-300K?

Carson's hypothetical employer's statement, "In any case, I'd want to hire
the person best suited for the job, and I'd want to pay them at a rate
that would make them want to continue in the job, i.e., a rate that says,
'I value you as an employee, and this is what you're worth to me'. ",
illustrates perfectly the reason for unions and strikes. He (as the
employer) considers himself the *sole* arbiter of the value of the
employee (slave?) to him. However this completely overlooks the rights of
the employee (consultant?), who has an equal right to say "This is what my
fee is for providing this service". However when the employer is a
monopoly, and the employees are separate individuals, the employer can
"divide and conquer", unless the employees organize to present a
consolidated compensation demand. Only *then* can the two sides bargain on
equal terms and reach a fair compromise. 

NO, I wouldn't want police to strike, either, Mary, if you were addressing
me.

re #36: That's still $200-300K that could/should have gone to teachers
         and students, where it's more needed.

re #37: I still can't see a monopoly in this case, which is mostly
         why I don't find myself agreeing. If an employer decides that
         its offer is concrete, then it's their right, just as it's the
         right of an employee to say, "You're not offering enough. I 
         don't want to work for you." That doesn't take a monopoly.

         Also, for it to be a monopoly situation, I believe that the
         employer would have to be the only one providing said services.
         That's not even close to true when it comes to the AAPS. There
         are several private schools in the area, not to mention other
         school districts. It's interesting to mention that the AAEA
         pointed out several other districts as offering more money to
         their employees than the AAPS. If these other school districts
         are offering such a great deal, then why stick around here?

         The teachers have a choice as far as whether they want to work
         for the Ann Arbor Public Schools or not. No one is keeping them
         from returning to work. They've made the choice to not go, and
         the school board has every right to make the choice to fill
         those positions with people who will work.

I guess I should make a distinction between my arguments and my
feelings. I don't think it would be prudent to force a contract upon
the teachers. I don't think it's terribly wise to "force" the teachers
back to the classroom, esp. after NOT agreeing to binding arbitration,
which would have put the teachers back willingly. I don't think it was
terribly wise to fund new administrative positions when students are
already suffering cutbacks. However, I recognize the board's right to
do all of these things, and hope that the voters will remember come
election time.

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