Sick leave banks are a common staple of teacher contracts. Although these banks may benefit employees, they expose school districts to a variety of complications and unintended consequences, including administrative complexity, potential cash flow implications, cost disparities, increased absenteeism, instructional instability, privacy issues, and…

When the economy is depressed, resources are limited, mandates are overwhelming, and the organizational climate in the district is souring, education leaders and teachers union officials often brace themselves for contentious negotiations. Poor economic conditions affect the district's ability to offer raises, maintain current benefit levels, and…

Fueled by declining revenue from the housing crisis, skyrocketing energy costs, and an economy in general disarray, the public is pressuring school administrators to make broader and deeper cuts in their operating budgets. As the baby boomers retire, put their houses on the market, and downsize, one will see more downward price pressure on home…

Free speech concerns associated with collective bargaining become important when unions impose fair-share fees that charge nonmembers for costs associated with the benefits they receive through labor negotiations. When unions collect fair-share fees, those payments often support causes with which nonmembers and dissenting members disagree.…

Identifies the major activities involved in collective bargaining and defines the differences between collaborative, win/win bargaining and adversarial bargaining. Key elements of collaborative bargaining include trust-building, respect, clear and continuous communications, avoidance of "one upmanship" games, mutual problem-solving…

In light of increasing accountability demands and intense scrutiny of public education, this article highlights five key strategies for negotiating with teacher unions: display willingness to do things differently, work together, meet informally, initiate intense inservice training, and view the negotiated agreement as a flexible, living document.…

Mutual gains negotiation is an innovative system that emphasizes interests instead of positions and problem solving instead of preconceived solutions. The process can reverse social disintegration, reverse worker alienation, and address a shifting educational environment. It can resolve difficult labor-management problems such as contracting out,…

Politicians are increasingly pressuring school districts to improve instruction while holding down costs. To achieve this aim, western New York school districts are experimenting with mutual gains bargaining, an alternative negotiation process based on Roger Fisher and William Ury's 1991 book "Getting to Yes." Instead of bargaining from…

Discusses technology-enabled productivity gains in American education. Provides several examples. (Contains 11 references.) (PKP)

To effectively prepare for negotiations: develop a sound philosophy; establish priorities; plan how to promote those priorities; practice fair negotiating procedures; and then assess through a postmortem the gains achieved by both parties, to help prevent personal and personnel problems. (Author)

North Carolina charter schools are operated by private, nonprofit corporations with federal, tax-exempt status and multicharter licenses. The application process is easy, the political climate under Governor Jim Hunt is progressive, and public employees are not unionized. On balance, the system seems both flexible and accountable to taxpayers.…

The adoption of provincewide collective bargaining in British Columbia is part of a broader trend that includes abolishing school boards in New Brunswick, eliminating traditional religion-based boards in Newfoundland, and amalgamating school districts and centralizing school finance in several provinces. British Columbia's innovation typifies an…

Collective bargaining cannot work when the parties are not free to assess the costs of agreeing against the costs of disagreeing and act on their decisions. Management must remove substantive bargaining restrictions, even if this means working to eliminate employee strike benefits and restrictions on the board's taxation ability. Affirmative…

Interest-bargaining involves focusing on the issues, segregating each issue, and assigning interests by each side to these issues until a mutually satisfactory option is reached. Cites effectiveness of interest-bargaining in 60 California school districts and an endorsement from the New York State School of industrial and Labor Relations at…

Most frequently made collective-bargaining errors include mistaking rhetoric for reality, negotiating every teacher demand, settling too soon, failing to resolve board conflict, allowing unions to define the comparison base, accepting ambiguous solutions, circumventing the bargaining team, not seeking counsel, waving "red flags," and trusting the…