2010 average teacher salaries
Ohio: $54,656
States without collective bargaining
Georgia: $52,879
North Carolina: $48,648
South Carolina: $47,421
Texas: $47,157
Virginia: $48,365
*National Education Association
Teachers working for Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools haven’t gotten a raise in two years. Union representatives also are lobbying against the scheduling of mandatory meetings outside the school day and workload issues. They have three minutes to make their plea for changing working conditions before the Fairfax County School Board.
There is no give and take across a bargaining table in Virginia, where the Supreme Court outlawed collective bargaining for public employees.
“Working conditions are learning conditions, ” said JoAnn Karsh, executive director of the Fairfax Education Association. “School employees here feel like they don’t have a voice.”
As the debate over collective bargaining continues in Ohio, the Dayton Daily News looked at the way labor and management operate in states where public employees cannot bargain. Under Senate Bill 5, public employees in Ohio would be limited to bargaining for wages. Pensions, health insurance and other issues would be off the table. Senate Bill 5 could have a committee vote as early as Tuesday and a Senate vote later this week. Opponents of the bill are planning to rally at the Statehouse on Tuesday.
Three states — North Carolina, Texas and Virginia — have laws prohibiting collective bargaining. Georgia and South Carolina have no laws either way.
Administrators and educators in those states say unions and teacher associations are still active, but they operate differently and have less influence than they do in Ohio.
They say both systems — one with collective bargaining or one based on civil service rules — have flaws. The key, they said, is learning to operate successfully in whatever system Ohio adopts.
Barbara Coyle, executive director of the Virginia School Boards Association, believes the anti-collective bargaining sentiment is a mind-set in her state that she can’t imagine changing. Still, school boards and education associations often lobby for the same issues.
“The goal from the school boards’ side is always doing what’s best for kids,” Coyle said. “That means having good teachers. If you want good teachers, you have to pay them.”
Coyle says the greatest obstacle facing Ohio, should the legislature limit collective bargaining, would be determining how to operate under a new system.
“The first step would be to legally determine how to proceed. How will the system operate?” she said. “You can’t just flip a switch.”
The association represents Virginia’s 134 school boards.
How a few other states’ systems work
Jacqueline Lane, director of government relations for the Texas Association of School Boards, said teachers there have successfully pressed their agenda without collective bargaining. The association represents the largest group of publicly elected officials in the state who preside over combined budgets of more than $43 billion annually, employ more than 600,000 people and serve 4.7 million Texas students.
“Teachers in Texas do have a voice. If they don’t get what they want from their school boards, they go to the legislature,” Lane said. “So much of what is in collective bargaining is regulated by statute in Texas. Neither system is preferred. Both are onerous.”
The state sets minimum salaries for teachers and determines when contracts can be awarded. Teachers annually move up a step on the salary schedule based on statute, so they can count on a raise every year.
The system offers certainty, Lane said. The drawback is the uniformity of the system has created a one-size-fits-all situation that doesn’t work in all circumstances. The system also generates an “absurd amount of statutory regulations.”
“What legislator doesn’t want to help teachers? It’s not surprising the result is a complex web of regulations,” Lane said.
Still, Texas teachers are among the lowest paid in the county, Lane said. The average teacher salary in Texas is $47,157 a year.
Ohio’s collective bargaining law was adopted in 1983. It took time to evolve the system and establish a stable framework. When that happened, the old civil service system “atrophied,” said Hugh D. Hindman, a professor of labor and human resources at Appalachian State University in North Carolina and a graduate of Ohio State University.
“Returning to the kind of era of civil service prior to collective bargaining, that’s going to be expensive,” he said.
Gaining the right to bargain wages, benefits and working conditions in Georgia is a legislative priority for the state teachers’ association.
“It’s not hopeless. I know it will not be easy, but it’s definitely something we’re working toward,” said Calvine Rollins, president of the Georgia Association of Educators.
If Ohio moves to limit collective bargaining, Rollins said teachers here could follow the lead of Georgia educators.
“Start a grass-roots effort working with legislators. Sit down with them and discuss priorities. In a lot of instances that communication makes the system work,” she said. “Our voice is our vote.”
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