By Byron York - Chief Political Correspondent washingtonexaminer.com
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker performs a ceremonial bill signing of the new budget law outside his office at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 11 2011 in Madison. The new law helped the Hartland-Lakeside School District save money on health care costs by switching providers.
The Hartland-Lakeside School District about 30 miles west of Milwaukee in tiny Hartland Wis. had a problem in its collective bargaining contract with the local teachers union.
The contract required the school district to purchase health insurance from a company called WEA Trust. The creation of Wisconsins largest teachers union -- WEA stands for Wisconsin Education Association -- WEA Trust made money when union officials used collective bargaining agreements to steer profitable business its way.
The problem for Hartland-Lakeside was that WEA Trust was charging significantly higher rates than the school district could find on the open market. School officials knew that because they got a better deal from United HealthCare for coverage of nonunion employees. On more than one occasion Superintendent Glenn Schilling asked WEA Trust why the rates were so high. I could never get a definitive answer on that says Schilling.
Changing to a different insurance company would save Hartland-Lakeside hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be spent on key educational priorities -- especially important since the cash-strapped state government was cutting back on education funding. But teachers union officials wouldnt allow it; the WEA Trust requirement was in the contract and union leaders refused to let Hartland-Lakeside off the hook.
Thats where Wisconsins new budget law came in. The law bitterly opposed by organized labor in the state and across the nation limits the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. And it just happens that the Hartland-Lakeside teachers collective bargaining agreement expired on June 30. So now freed from the expensive WEA Trust deal the school district has changed insurers.
Its going to save us about $690000 in 2011-2012 says Schilling. Insurance costs that had been about $2.5 million a year will now be around $1.8 million. What union leaders said would be a catastrophe will in fact be a boon to teachers and students.
But the effect of weakening collective bargaining goes beyond money. It also has the potential to reshape the adversarial culture that often afflicts public education. In Hartland-Lakeside theres been no war between union-busting bureaucrats on one side and impassioned teachers on the other; Schilling speaks with great collegiality toward the teachers and says with pride that theyve been able to work together on big issues. But there has been a deep division between the school district and top union executives.
In the health insurance talks for example Schilling last year began telling teachers about different insurance plans some of which like United HealthCares required a higher deductible. We involved them and they overwhelmingly endorsed the change to United HealthCare he says. But even with the teachers on board when school officials presented a change-in-coverage proposal to union officials it was immediately rejected. The costly WEA Trust deal stayed in place.
Now with the collective bargaining agreement gone Schilling looks forward to working more closely with teachers. I would say the biggest change is we have a lot more involvement with a wider scope of teachers he says. When collective bargaining was in effect We dealt with a select team of teachers a small group of three or four who were on the bargaining team and then the union director. Any information that went to the teachers went through them. Now we feel that we will have a direct dialogue.
Its not hard to see why union officials hate the new law so much. It not only breaks up cherished and lucrative union monopolies like high-cost health insurance; it also threatens to break through the union-built wall between teachers and administrators and allow the two sides to work together more closely. The old union go-betweens who controlled what their members could and could not hear will be left aside.
Hartland-Lakeside isnt the only school district that is pulling free from collective bargaining agreements that mandated WEA Trust coverage. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the Pewaukee School District not far from Hartland-Lakeside will save $378000 by next year by leaving WEA Trust. The Menomonee Falls School District farther north will reportedly save $1.3 million. Facing state cutbacks the districts cant afford to overpay for union-affiliated coverage.
Look for the unions to fight back with everything they have. If the Wisconsin situation has shown anything it is that organized labor views the collective bargaining fight as a life-or-death struggle. If the unions lose in Wisconsin the clamor for change could spread to other states. What happened in Hartland-Lakeside could become a model for other schools looking for new and better ways to do business.
Byron York The Examiners chief political correspondent can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com.
