Abstract This paper provides a summary of the Illinois Policy Institute’s Bargaining for Better Schools: An Introduction to Collective Bargaining in Illinois Public Education. The policy paper discusses how teachers unions take advantage of the collective bargaining process in Illinois by working with school boards. The school board members are elected thanks in part to the campaign funds provided by the unions. When it comes time to negotiate teachers’ salaries and benefits, the boards are thus in the pockets of the unions, as they feel compelled to reciprocate by giving the unions what they want. Taxpayers are left in the dark about much of this because of the misleading communications provided them by the unions.

Keywords: Illinois public schools, Illinois teacher unions, Illinois collective bargaining

Introduction

This paper examines the Illinois Policy Institute’s (n.d.) Bargaining for Better Schools: An Introduction to Collective Bargaining in Illinois Public Education. It will provide a summary of the work with examples of how the teacher unions use the collective bargaining process and their “agents” on the school boards to win better benefits for teachers at the expense of schools and taxpayers. The paper then provides a reflection on the matter and a conclusion. In the Appendix are 5 questions that can be used to facilitate discussion on the material.

Summary

The Illinois Policy Institute’s (n.d.) Bargaining for Better Schools: An Introduction to Collective Bargaining in Illinois Public Education provides information on the collective bargaining process in Illinois public schools and how stakeholders in that process participate. Each chapter examines a different aspect of the process. The paper looks at collective bargaining under state law, the role of school boards in the collective bargaining process, as well as teachers’ unions and individual teachers’ roles in the...

The paper also examines procedural challenges in the public-sector collective bargaining process, the benefits and salaries of employees, challenges faced by school boards, and it finally provides reflections on the process overall.
The paper points out that because of the collective bargaining process, “Illinois public school teachers now enjoy highly favorable benefits and competitive salaries, as well as tenure rights unheard of to private-sector workers” (Illinois Policy Institute, n.d., p. 6). In other words, unions have the upper hand when it comes to collective bargaining, and the taxpayer is the one left on the hook for covering all the benefits that teachers accrue over the course of the process. The end result is that school districts end up proposing to raise taxes on their communities in order to support the substantial benefits that teachers are awarded because of the collective bargaining process driven by the teachers’ unions. This drives communities deeper into debt, as taxes are already high in Illinois. Since the unions actively get involved in school board elections (supporting candidates that will partake in the quid pro quo process), the game is somewhat rigged in favor of the unions. In this system, the only ones who benefit are the educators who are rewarded monetarily for the long term thanks to all the benefits they receive, including the pensions that are among the best in the public service sector throughout the state of Illinois.

Indeed, as the Illinois Policy Institute (n.d.) points out, “taxpayers and members of the community are frequently unaware of, or misinformed about, what is negotiated between their elected school boards and the unions” (p. 40). Misleading communications are sent to the public, for example, about general salary increases for teachers, indicating that educators are being rewarded very little, when in fact the salary increase is only one part of the compensation given to…