Collective Bargaining in Illinois Public Schools

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 process.

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 teachers: there is much more that is awarded them during the collective bargaining process, but the unions do not communicate this information to the public because then the public might become outraged that so much money is being lavished on the educators when the schools remain in such abysmal shape.

Approximately 75-85% of a school district’s budget, meanwhile, is allocated just to paying teachers (Illinois Policy Institute, n.d., p. 40). That leaves very little for school improvements. Reflection The taxpayers are the ones who are forced to pay long term for the “good deal” that teachers are getting thanks to the unions and the collective bargaining process employed on their behalf.

The unions, moreover, have the school boards in their back pockets, much the same way that corporate lobbyists have politicians at the federal level in their back pockets. When it comes to campaign funds, politicians are bought with campaign dollars used to get them elected and in return the politicians are expected to do the bidding of the lobbyists and their donors.

This is the quid pro quo nature of the game and it is no different at the local level where the school boards that should be doing more to oppose the unions and the reform the collective bargaining process end up giving the unions whatever they want because they owe their current jobs on the boards to these same unions who supported them with campaign financing.

Meanwhile, taxpayers are left with subpar schools and a subpar education system, with an enormous gap between well-performing schools and all the other schools, which are basically schools operating in poorer communities. Teachers make out like bandits over the long term because of the pensions that are promised them, which the state must continue to pay out even though the state of Illinois is essentially bankrupt at this point and hasn’t the money to make the payments to these pension funds anymore.

That doesn’t stop the unions and school boards from continuing to play the game to benefit the educators and the union leaders. The taxpayers and the school children are the ones who lose out. This process should be eliminated or at least reformed so that the teachers unions can no longer.