Springfield Schools Need to Allow Teachers to Vote for Representation

Springfield News-Leader Editorial Board, May 1, 2009, "Our Voice":

Right to a unified voice should be respected and an election held.

The foot-dragging has gone far enough in the Springfield school district.

The tortuous back-and-forth over who gets to represent teachers in collective bargaining talks is now stretching into Year 2.

And there's no real end in sight. It's embarrassing and unnecessary. As school board member Andy Hosmer put it at a recent meeting: "The damage we've done, the trust we've lost -- it's incalculable."

The crux of the problem is that the district continues to try to address it by not really addressing it. Board members bandy about whether to let teachers vote for representation, how to specifically do it, how many elections will be held.

There's been talk of holding as many as three elections now, with no concrete plans for any.

The dispute has its roots in the existence of two teacher associations in Springfield: the 900-plus member Missouri National Education Association or the 500-or-so member Missouri State Teachers Association.

Administrators and the majority of the school board members profess that they are just trying to be fair to both associations, but failure to decide in this case is really not fair.

It succeeds only in angering the majority of the district's teachers at a time when they're already dealing with other aggravation -- like no raises.

Teachers have just been told the recession will likely kill any chance for a raise, even for movement up the experience ladder. This has happened despite the district's repeated vow that improving teacher pay is a high-priority, long-term goal.

The teachers should at least be given the opportunity to have a unified voice in discussing school issues, policies and conditions that affect them.

Most teachers simply want an election to determine exclusive representation. They're not after the right to strike or binding arbitration, neither of which is permitted in Missouri.

The NEA, led by Ray Smith, presented a petition to the board months ago with 1,140 names of teachers advocating an election. The district, however, has danced around allowing one, claiming officials first must figure out if the teachers really want exclusive representation, or if they want both NEA and MSTA.

Answering that, Smith turns to a pretty authoritative source.

A May 2007 Missouri Supreme Court decision said, "... employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing."

Having two associations in talks allows the district to play one against the other, NEA contends.
As might be expected, the administration, led by Superintendent Norm Ridder, seems more than happy to hold on to that card.

We urged the district in the fall to get this issue behind it. It's now long past time for that to happen.

This is an unfortunate, significant distraction at a time when energy could be so much more fruitfully spent.

This editorial is the view of the News-Leader Editorial Board.