Frequently Asked Questions
Teacher Negotiations
Teacher Negotiations
How is a teacher salary schedule organized?
The teacher salary schedule has both steps and lanes. When you look at the attached salary schedule, steps are the numbers going down the left side of the salary schedule. Lanes are the categories across the top. Lanes refer to educational attainment a teacher can obtain. Steps refer to the years of experience a teacher has in the District.
What is step advancement?
After completing one year of service, a teacher advances one full step on the salary schedule. The half-steps are only used for initial placement of a teacher on the schedule. The District can give a teacher credit for experience earned prior to becoming employed in the West Bend Joint School District.
For example (assumes no additional credits from universities and no change to salary schedule from year to year):
Year 1: Lane 1 (BA) / Step 1 $35,280
Year 2: Lane 1 (BA) / Step 2 $36,816
What is lane advancement?
Looking at the attached salary schedule, you can see the lanes across the top. Teachers must obtain a Bachelors Degree to be licensed in Wisconsin and gain employment. Teachers that earn additional graduate credits may turn those credits in for lane advancement on the salary schedule. Teachers must pay for the credits and receive advancement after submitting earned credits to Human Resources. The lanes advance with increments of 12 credits, earning a Masters degree and again, credits beyond your Masters degree. Teachers must submit a form demonstrating how credits will impact his/her classroom performance.
What is the term of the teacher contract?
The term of the last contract is two years and aligned to the State of Wisconsin biennial budget. The law allows teacher contracts to be in effect for one to four years. If the parties proceed to arbitration, the term must be for two years unless both parties agree otherwise.
When do contract negotiations begin and who negotiates the contract?
Bargaining begins several months before the expiration of the current agreement. This link takes you directly to the contract language for the procedures for negotiating the next agreement.
The contract is negotiated between the School District and the West Bend Education Association. Each party selects members that serve on its bargaining team.
How are teacher contract disputes resolved?
The State of Wisconsin encourages the voluntary settlement of teacher/school district contracts through the procedures of collective bargaining and, if that fails, arbitration is used to resolve teacher contracts. There are three main steps involved: (1) face-to-face negotiations; (2) mediation/investigation; and (3) arbitration. Each of these stages are explained below:
Step 1. Face-to-Face Negotiations. Collective bargaining begins when the two parties exchange proposals in an open session. (See link to initial proposals). All meetings after that must be held in closed session if one party requests it. In West Bend, the parties have met in face-to-face negotiations beginning in November 2009.
Step 2. Mediation/Investigation. The District filed for arbitration on December 16, 2009. The District filed the Petition for Arbitration with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) – which is the state agency empowered to oversee the collective bargaining law. The WERC charges an $800.00 filing fee that is split evenly between both parties for this service. The District has submitted a preliminary final offer along with this Petition (see link for District’s preliminary final offer). The Union had fourteen calendar days to submit its own preliminary final offer. The Union submitted its preliminary final offer on February 2, 2010 (see link for Union’s preliminary final offer). Daniel Nielsen from the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, serves as the parties’ investigator.
There are two roles that Mr. Nielsen will play. First, he will serve as a “mediator”. The role of the mediator is to try to persuade both parties to reach a voluntary settlement. The mediator has no power to force or dictate any terms of settlement. He or she may suggest alternatives, compromises, ideas and suggestions for the parties to consider in an attempt to resolve issues and settle the contract.
If Mr. Nielsen is unable to persuade the parties to reach a voluntary settlement through his mediation efforts, his role changes to that of an “investigator”. An investigator determines if the parties are “deadlocked” or have reached impasse in their attempts to resolve the contract.
At that point, the investigator will ask both parties to submit final offers on the remaining issues in dispute. He will then exchange those final offers between both parties. Both parties can continue to modify their final offers until both sides are satisfied that there is no further movement. There are no surprises in this process. Each party will know the contents of the other parties’ final offer.
In this process, the final offer exchange can occur at a face-to-face meeting, via email or regular mail. Exchanges can go on for months until both sides have exhausted all flexibility and have submitted their final, final offer. In other words, there can be many different final offers until both sides indicate to the investigator that there is no further movement forthcoming after seeing the contents of the other parties’ final offer.
Once both parties have exhausted all flexibility and indicated that they have no further modifications to their final offer, the investigator will close the investigation and submit his findings to the WERC. The final offers must be for a period of two years unless the parties agree otherwise. Neither party may amend its final offer once the investigator closes the investigation and “certifies” the final offer, without the other parties’ consent.
Step 3. Arbitration. Once the investigation has been closed, the WERC will certify the investigator’s results and send the parties a list of seven arbitrators. Both parties alternately strike names from this panel until one person remains. The person remaining is appointed by the WERC. The list of arbitrators is maintained by the WERC and represents people that have experience in resolving labor relations disputes.
The arbitrators are not members of the WERC staff and are usually university professors, lawyers or other specialists in the field of labor relations. Arbitrator fees generally range from $700.00 to $1,000.00 per day plus expenses. Both parties share the cost of the arbitrator equally.
Under the law, a public hearing must be scheduled if five or more citizens file such a request. The arbitrator chairs the public hearing. This provides an opportunity for the public to offer its comments on the two final offers.
While little used, under the arbitration law, both parties may decide to withdraw their final offers in which case the Union may strike, provided it gives ten day notice of its intent to do so. While such a strike would be legal, they rarely, if ever, occur.
What is far more common is that the arbitrator would schedule an arbitration hearing whereby both parties would present exhibits and testimony in support of their respective final offers. The arbitrator will apply the statutory criteria in judging the reasonableness of each party’s final offer. Both parties typically write post-hearing briefs summarizing the evidence and try to convince the arbitrator that their final offer is more reasonable than the other parties’ final offer.
The statutory criteria are summarized as follows:
(a) the lawful authority of the municipal employer;
(b) the stipulations of the parties;
(c) the interest and welfare of the public and the financial ability of the unit of government to meet the cost of any proposed settlement;
(d) comparisons of wages, hours and conditions of employment with other employees performing similar services;
(e) comparison of wages, hours and conditions of employment of other employees generally in public employment in the same community and in comparable communities;
(f) comparison of wages, hours and condition of employment of other employees generally in private employment in the same community and in comparable communities;
(g) cost of living;
(h) overall compensation presently received by the municipal employees including fringe benefits;
(i) changes in any of the foregoing circumstances during the pendency of the arbitration proceedings; and
(j) such other factors not confined to the foregoing, which are normally or traditionally taken into consideration in the determination of wages, hours and conditions of employment.
After the briefs have been submitted, the arbitrator then issues an Arbitration Award whereby he/she selects one of the final offers in its entirety, without modification. The arbitrator has no authority to “split the difference”; he/she has no authority to write new terms of the final offer. He or she must accept the final offers as presented and select one or the other without modification.
The entire process, from the time the final offers are certified and until award is issued is approximately nine months to one year.
What are the salary increases under the District and Union preliminary final offers?
The average salary in 2008-2009 for a teacher in West Bend was $56,859.00. The District has proposed that the salary schedule not be increased in the first year 2009-2010. However, due to step movement, the average salary increase would be $1,114.00, or 2%. In the second year, the District has proposed an increase of 2% across each cell on the salary schedule. This would produce an average salary increase of $2,138.00 per teacher, or 3.7%.
The Union’s preliminary final offer has a proposed a 1% per cell increase in 2009-2010, 3% per cell increase in 2010-2011 and 4% cell increase in 2011-2012.
The above figures refer only to the salary schedule itself and not other salaries such as extracurricular pay, extended contracts, etc. The above figures also exclude the cost of teachers obtaining additional education credits and moving into new salary lanes on the salary schedule. The total cost that the District expends for teachers moving into new salary lanes amounts to about $250,000.00 per year, or $516.00 per teacher.
