A Negotiation
A short-short story
It’s ironic that the teacher’s union got me canned. After all, I was a teacher, even the union rep, presenting teacher grievances to the union.
But that was before I became an administrator. I was just appointed Director of Business Services for the school district and part of my job was to negotiate the teacher contract with the union.
As a teacher and parent, I saw many teachers who were okay for two or three years and got tenure, but as the years went by, they burned out and increasingly hurt their students, not just low test scores but kids’ emotional well-being. Some teachers were downright mean, even scary.
So in my first negotiation with the union, I decided that the one non-negotiable would be that any increase in pay and benefits be accompanied by less onerous criteria for terminating an ineffective tenured teacher. Currently, the “due” process is so undue that it’s too poor a use of time and money for a principal, the administration, and the lawyers to fight it.
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I was naive. When I said that was non-negotiable, the response from the union’s lawyer-filled negotiation team was, “Never in a million years.” My rejoinder: “This year!” They laughed, “We’d strike for the year and get you fired long before that.”
Just two days later, front page in the local newspaper read, “Administrator Demands Hurting Our Kids.” The hyperbole was backed by an article that could have and perhaps was written by the union, for example, “Mary Michaels wants to fire experienced teachers, perhaps because it’s cheaper to hire inexperienced ones.”
That was just the start. The union’s PR machine unleashed an assault on me in every media outlet, TV, radio, and social media. I guess the union decided that if they gave in in my district, other districts would follow. And the union sees its core job as — except in the most extreme circumstances — protecting teacher jobs.
Less than a week later, the district superintendent called me into her office and said, “I so admire your principles, and you’re right. But the children can’t afford a long strike and the district can’t afford the hit to its reputation. The union is spending a fortune to paint us as anti-child. Plus, they have so much influence with the government. They’ve already drafted legislation that they’ve submitted to their buddies on the state senate education committee. Mary, I have to send you back to the classroom.”
In a way, I’m happier. School districts often promote the best teachers to administration, but the skill set to be an administrator is so different from that of the good teacher. I’m not a politician. I am a teacher. Fortunately, I’m allowed to opt out of being represented by the union.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
Dr. Marty Nemko is a career and personal coach. He’s also the author of 18 books, including, Soloists: Short-short stories of introverts and outsiders facing a dilemma. You can reach Marty at mnemko@comcast.net.
