Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district

"This is a disaster," said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.

Now the bill is law, and we have some very early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster.

The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

Just to offer a little perspective most of you might not be aware of, here are some facts:

1. The budget was mostly balanced by cutting the effective take-home pay of public employees.

2. They were required to pay 5.8% (and possibly more) of their salaries into the state retirement fund, something they had not been doing previously.

3. In the case of state employees, they were required to pay 12.6 (maybe it was 12.8) percent of the cost of their health insurance policies. Many paid zero previously.

4. People arguing that teachers voluntarily negotiated even bigger cuts than the governor got with his coercive budget can only claim that because the teachers’ union pressured teaching staffs across the state to quickly agree to a new contract implementing many of the Governor’s actions. This enabled them to also lock in all the other contract provisions regarding seniority, prep times, extra-duty pay, etc., for another year.

5. The fact that so many teachers (about half the schools in the state) agreed to unilaterally take the cuts proposed by the Governor as long as they could extend the other contract provisions undermined any claim they had that it was an unjust cut in teacher compensation (even though it probably was.)

6. The net effect was that you see very little discussion in the news about the impact on teacher’s take-home pay. After all, half the teachers in the state took the cuts essentially voluntarily by extending contracts that included those same cuts.

7. The union probably shot itself in the foot regarding teacher pay because, having lobbied its members to sign the contract extensions (they were the brainchild of the union, not the schools, probably to keep union dues flowing for another year) they would look stupid now arguing that those cuts were extreme (and they were actually quite extreme in many cases, resulting in 10-15% cuts to take-home pay, even in rural areas where teachers aren’t exactly overpaid.)

8. Because school districts are now forbidden to withhold union dues from paychecks (teachers have to pay them out of their take-home checks, which will be accordingly larger but they will actually see the money) and because each local union must be recertified by a vote every year, it will be interesting to see how many schools vote out their unions in the next few months. It could be a lot of them, as teachers ask “and just what have you done for me lately, other than reduce my take-home pay a ton?”

ABC7 Local
‘Fleeing’ Wisconsin senators earn NEA award
Saturday, July 02, 2011

July 2, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — The 14 Wisconsin state senators who left the state to avoid voting on a collective bargaining bill were honored by educators in Chicago Saturday.

Story: No let up in Wisconsin political standoff

Six of them were on hand to receive the Friend of Education Award from the National Education Association. The group is holding its annual meeting at McCormick Place.

The state senators came to Illinois to avoid voting on a bill ending most collective bargaining for Wisconsin public employees. That measure was eventually passed.

On Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak to the educators.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8228291

7/1/2011 7:15:00 AM

Members chipped in $23.4 million to WEAC in 2008 union dues
Dues pay exorbitant union salaries; WEAC awarded just $18,850 in scholarships out of $24 million budget

Richard Moore
Investigative Reporter

News Analysis

With the practice of paying forced union dues soon to become a relic of the past for many public employees, officials of the Wisconsin Education Association Council have reportedly contacted members in a bid to convince them to continue paying up through automatic bank withdrawals.

That’s not surprising because the revenue stream the state’s largest teachers’ union is trying to protect is substantial. In fact, the organization collected more than $23.4 million in membership dues in fiscal year 2009 from its approximately 98,000 members. ...

http://lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=9&SubSectionID=109&ArticleID=13387

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