Labor Negotiation Follies

School district labor negotiations get a good deal more complicated in school districts than in private industry, where management and the unions are separate and distinct. The classical model is especially challenged when a majority of the school board owes its election to the support of the union. In the worst case scenario, the union is essentially negotiating with itself. Management negotiators may find themselves fighting a two-front war, wondering whether the board will back them up at crunch time.

This is no theoretical concern. The last time MPS had a union-backed majority, then-president Joe Fisher took it upon himself to meet with the union and came back with an agreement that included most of the union demands. These included the expansion of the early-retirement pension plan, whose ballooning costs is helping put a continuing squeeze on the schools' budgets.

Will history repeat itself? There are disturbing signs that it may. Once again, the board has a union-backed majority. And once again, it has a president--now Peter Blewett--who seems eager to inject himself into the negotiations. Word is out that, like Fisher, he has visited with union officials and seems to be making himself into an advocate of the union position.