Union Seniority Rules Can Result in Terminating Top Teachers

While the final outcome for Chryselle Angderson, a popular stringed instruments teacher at Helen Morgan School in Sparta, New Jersey, ended well, she was among the 17 Sparta school district personnel members who were to have their positions eliminated for the 2016-17 budget year.  The cuts were to include two high school and five elementary school teachers based on their seniority rather than their merit.   At the March Board of Education meeting, Ms. Angderson, in particular, received outstanding praise and support from parents and students.  She even received a standing ovation and some students held up their instruments to show their support for her.  [See: Amy Bate, “Full house at Sparta BOE meeting,” Sparta Independent, 3/17/16, http://www.spartaindependent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20160317/NEWS01/160319974/Full-house-at-Sparta-BOE-meeting#sthash.ORD8xDJj.dpuf ].  It is clear that Ms. Angderson had the merit, but she didn’t have the seniority.

Brian Stities, a parent, said that Ms. Angderson has “the rare combination of expertise…, love of teaching and the ability to motivate….”  [See: Joseph Picard, “Community rallied to keep beloved music teacher,” Sparta Independent, 5/5-11/16, p.1.  A petition drive to keep Ms. Angderson obtained some 600 signatures.  Id. at p.2.]

Ironically, just before the April BOE meeting Ms. Angderson was notified that she would not be let go.  The district also found a way to keep a World Language teacher.  The School Administration said the decision to keep Ms. Angderson had nothing to do with the petition, public outcry and support for Ms. Angderson, but the decision was due to a sudden retirement of a music teacher.  However, there are some who feel the petition and the public support helped the BOE make the decision.  Id. at p.2.  The rest of the seniority-based laid off members of the district staff were not so fortunate.

A similar case in Wisconsin also ended well for at least one outstanding teacher.  In June 2010, Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English named Megan Sampson the outstanding first-year teacher.  However, in the same month she was among 482 educators who received their layoff notices from Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).  [See: Erin Richards and Amy Hetzner, “Seniority system cuts fresh MPS teachers amid budget crunch” Journal Sentinel, 6/14/2010, http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/96349689.html ].

Due to the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (“MTEA”) contract and the MTEA’s monopoly negotiating power, the MPS had to lay off teachers strictly based on seniority, even though the MPS had offered to save teacher jobs by encouraging switching medical insurance coverage. At the time the MPS offered its teachers the option of two generous health-care plans. The cost of either plan was covered in full by the MPS, meaning teachers had no financial incentive to switch from the higher-cost Aetna plan to a lower-cost United Health Care plan. Id.

Michael Bonds, Milwaukee School Board President, said that if all of the teachers switched to the United Health Care plan the MPS could have saved $48 million, enough to save the jobs of 480 teachers.  Some of the teachers expressed frustration that the Union had not contacted them (the people the Union claims to represent) about switching health care plans to save teachers jobs. Id.

However, analogous to Chryselle Angderson, Megan Sampson, who had taught English at the Bradley Tech High School in the MPS for the 2009-10 school year, was able to quickly obtain a new teaching position.  After applying to various other schools, she accepted a position teaching English at Wauwatosa East High School, starting in the fall of 2010.  Meanwhile, due to numerous resignations and additional funding, MPS “called back” Ms. Sampson, but she decided to continue in her new position at Wauwatosa East.  [See: James B. Nelson, “Gov. Scott Walker says Wisconsin’s ‘teacher of the year’ was laid off due to union contract,” POLITIFACT WISCONSIN, http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/feb/16/scott-walker/gov-scott-walker-says-wisconsins-teacher-year-was-/]. 

Governor Scott Walker has used the Megan Sampson case as a reason why his Act 10 was needed.  Act 10 allowed school districts to avoid the strict use of seniority for layoffs. In addition, among other things, Act 10 allows school districts to put their health insurance contracts out to bid, and obtain multiple competitive bids, rather than being forced to use the teachers’ union’s WEA Trust insurance.  Id.  The bidding process allowed school districts to save tens of millions of dollars and even hire more teachers.

In one case, as reported by The Ozaukee Press, because Port Washington, Wisconsin became able to shop for insurance, the WEA Trust lowered its proposed premium for the following year from an 8% increase to a 3.3% decrease.  However, two other insurance companies offered Port Washington a 7% decrease and a savings of a million dollars.  [See: Scott Walker, Unintimidated, p. 142.]

The Appleton, Wisconsin school district was able to save $3.1 million on the same health insurance from the WEA Trust, just because the school district was able to put its insurance out for competitive bids as permitted under Act 10.  Id. at 143.  Due to Act 10, Muskego-Norway school district was able to cut its health insurance by $2 million by switching to United Health from the Union controlled WEA Trust. Id.  Dozens of other school districts across Wisconsin had similar experiences for a state wide total of $91 million in savings or 24%.  Id.

In Madison, where most of the Union protests took place, Act 10 reforms permitted the school district to avoid teacher layoffs, open a new middle school, start a kindergarten program for four-year olds and give teachers raises.  Id. at 144.  In fact, across the state there was a net increase of 1,213 in teachers in the year after Act 10 was enacted.  Id. at 145.

However, the union-controlled school boards in Milwaukee, Kenosha and Janesville rushed to lock in long-term teachers’ union contracts while Act 10 was still being debated and were forced to lay off 800 teachers, because they were unable to take advantage of Act 10 until those contracts expired.  Id.  This means that the rest of the state actually added over two thousand teachers.

Another example of union action being detrimental to the teachers

took place in Ohio.   There a union referendum was able to repeal Ohio’s new Right-To-Work (RTW) Law before it took effect, by flooding the airwaves with misleading ads claiming Ohio’s new RTW Law would lead to massive layoffs of teachers.

In reality, the public sector layoffs in Ohio were much worse than they would have been had the law not been repealed.  The law did not reduce the money spent, but only permitted more prudent allocation of the money.  Furthermore, the Ohio layoffs were much worse than those that occurred anywhere in Wisconsin, where Act 10 survived union challenges.  For example, the Cleveland School Board laid off 17% of the district’s school teachers in April 2012.  [See: “Government Union Lobby Remains Formidable,” NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK NEWLETTER (NRWN), July 2012, p. 3.]

Analyzing these examples raises the question whether certain provisions in the teachers’ union contracts, such as seniority rather than merit determining promotions and layoffs or full monopoly bargaining power affecting some of the costs such as health insurance, actually help the teachers or are detrimental to the teachers, the students, the parents, the school system and the taxpayers.