Contract Negotiations in West Bloomfield Reach Impasse

Snow day aside, today may have felt like an ordinary Monday for students, but for teachers in the West Bloomfield School District, it means much more.

Today marks the first school day of a collective bargaining impasse between the  district and the teachers, who have worked without a binding contract since Aug. 31, 2010.

An impasse is defined generally by the National Labor Relations Board as the point in which further contract negotiations are futile. The school district now has the legal right, as recommended in a Fact Finding report (PDF attached) submitted Dec. 21 by Michael P. Long, a neutral labor expert selected by the State Board of Education, to ask teachers to work under a contract described as the “best, last offer," said Cyndi Austin, Uniserve director for the Michigan Education Association.

At a special board meeting Friday, the board passed a resolution that allows Superintendent JoAnn Andrees to take "any actions she deems necessary" in dealing with negotiations, which includes legal action to impose its contract on the teachers union (see attached PDF, enclosure 4). The board also passed a resolution to discontinue grievance procedure for teachers (enclosure 3).

According to Andrees, a public meeting must be called before any legal action to impose would take place. As of  Sunday, no meeting had been called.

In the meantime, school board meetings have become the site of vehement protest from the teachers in the West Bloomfield Education Association, who have braved below-freezing temperatures to picket en masse prior to meetings and have packed inside the WBHS media center to publicly comment during them.

Thirty-six teachers at West Bloomfield High School called in sick on Tuesday, but Kim Pilarski, head of the WBEA, absolved the union, saying the action was not a coordinated activity.

"I shouldn't have come to school that day," said David Parker, a sophomore at West Bloomfield High School, on Friday. "At first I was annoyed, because I had to wake up that day and they didn't. Then it was pretty much like a day off. I didn't really care, to be honest."

Kevin Walsh, WBEA crisis board co-chairman and WBHS video productions teacher, has publicly questioned the choice he made in 2000 to leave a tenured position in the Royal Oak school district and come to West Bloomfield.

"When I came over here, I felt as though I was a part of something great," Walsh said in an interview two weeks ago. “Now it feels like a job. I have no idea how the district thinks we're going to get the best teachers in Oakland County with salaries at the lowest in the county. ... A lot of great teachers are going to be looking for new jobs if this deal goes through."

Andrees said that she feels bad for parents and teachers at board meetings.

"When you look at who came to speak, it’s the parents and relatives of teachers. You’re seeing people who have been solicited by teachers to come forward," she said. "No parent wants to speak bad about their teacher, and I don't want to speak bad about my teachers. I know that I'm going to lose teachers, and it hurts me."

The WBEA has also began to pass out information at neighborhood grocery stores, has published press releases, and has campaigned online.

"Picketing, T-shirts, these are called 'crisis activities,' " said Austin, who added that she feels the board may be taking hard-line stances even in mediation. "We don't feel like we've been bargained with fairly. ... Whatever is said to a mediator is confidential — it's not binding, and you don't have to change table positions. Well, we have deviated from our table positions."

Austin continued to say that another mediation session is scheduled for Thursday and March 8. In the meantime, some parents in the district are not optimistic for the possibilities of the district's contract offer.

"West Bloomfield is asking their teachers to shoulder all of the financial burden," said Nancy Singer, a mother of three children in the district, at Friday's meeting. "If this cut in pay is imposed, new jobs in West Bloomfield will not go to the best and brightest teachers, but to those who couldn't get jobs in Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills."

However, some parents give congratulations to the district and the teacher's union for the speed relative to other recent contract negotiations.

"In January, I commended the school board for the expediency because nobody in the community has any frame of reference," said Christy Forhan, a mother of three in the district in an interview last week. "Rochester schools and we're at six months. It’s been 30 years since we’ve had anything like this. Nobody knows what is fast and slow."