Teacher contract negotiations stall

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NEWBERRY - Teacher contract talks in the Tahquamenon Area Schools District ground to a halt Monday after a two-hour session with a state mediator.

The Tahquamenon Area Education Association represents 70 teachers in the district who have worked under the terms of an expired contract this past school year.

Issues dividing the school board and the teachers during their months of negotiations include salaries, insurance and teaching time.

Both sides met with state mediator Ed Eppert Monday. At the close of the session, the school board negotiating representatives said the board felt the talks were at an impasse.

The school board said it now intends "to implement all or part of our last offer" made to the teachers earlier in the day.

"This obviously has made people not very happy," said Tahquamenon Area Education Association President Robert Cameron.

Randall Griffis, chief spokesman for the teachers' bargaining team, said in a release that the board adopted a firm bargaining position early in the negotiations process.

Griffis said the board offered "little or no change in position despite concessions made by the Tahquamenon Area Education Association that would have saved the district tens of thousands of dollars and would have resolved prior objections raised by the board's bargaining team."

According to Griffis, the teachers do not feel the talks are at an impasse, with several issues remaining to be considered at the bargaining table.

Cameron said the board has appeared to have had its collective mind made up before negotiations began about what it would accept.

"It's been from our vantage point we just negotiated with ourselves," Cameron said. "They just want everything. It's a mess."

Tahquamenon Area School Board Superintendent Alice Walker said the two sides have met four times with Eppert and the school district would be willing to meet again.

"I wish things turned out differently yesterday, but it didn't," Walker said.

Griffis said despite several bargaining and state mediation sessions, the board has "repeatedly not bargained in good faith and has attempted to bypass the negotiations process by appealing directly to the Tahquamenon Area Education Association membership at a public board meeting."

A hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 11 in Lansing to consider an unfair labor practice charge on that issue filed by the teachers' union against the board.

Griffis said "the board and its representatives have, through their course of conduct, evidenced a lack of honesty of purpose and requisite integrity which is an inherent necessity if collective bargaining is to be conducted in good faith."

"Moreover, the board's conduct evidences (sic) that it is merely engaging in surface bargaining, lacking an open-minded attitude and a sincere desire to arrive at a mutually-acceptable agreement, both of which are fundamental and necessary if good faith negotiations are to occur," Griffis said.

Walker said there have been sticking points in the negotiations, but declined to elaborate on details of the talks.

"I feel that we have in good faith bargained all along, but I guess somebody else will determine that now," Walker said.

Like many school districts in the Upper Peninsula, the Tahquamenon Schools are struggling with a steep drop in enrollment, which ultimately affects finances.

Enrollment in the district has shrunk from 1,238 students in 2001 to 997, a nearly 20 percent drop. Meanwhile, health insurance and other costs have risen dramatically.

These factors have worked to complicate the contract negotiations for the district and its teachers. Initially, the two sides had hoped a one-year agreement would be reached by the middle of last October.