Change of Subject: Legal victory would be a PR defeat for teachers ...

?The Chicago Teachers Union raises some good points in the formal complaint it has filed with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

It its effort to lengthen the classroom day by 90 minutes for elementary students, the Chicago Board of Education is using a provision in the union contract that has traditionally been used to let teachers at individual schools make minor adjustments in the daily or yearly calendar to try to implement a systemwide change that significantly alters key provisions in the agreement.

?Administrators have been going school by school offering incentives to staffs that vote to work a longer day. (See a waiver ballot here)

It's analogous to the owner of a unionized factory going department by department and offering bonuses and other goodies to workers who agree to ignore major parts of their labor deals. Such an effort makes an end-run around contractual rights and takes the "collective" out of collective bargaining.

In its legal complaint, the union raises a number of other procedural issues to how the waiver has been enacted so far at nine schools (as of Friday afternoon), and asks for "preliminary injunctive relief" ? what amounts to a temporary restraining order that would restore the old schedule at the breakaway schools ? until the dispute winds its way through the administrative law process.

Board of Education officials have been saying the process has followed the letter of the contract and has been totally kosher. The formal response of their lawyers to the complaint isn't due until Monday. Nearly two weeks after that we'll get a preliminary determination from Educational Labor Relations Board director Victor Blackwell.

If he finds potential merit in the complaint, the request for a restraining order will go to the five-member board on Oct. 20, after which it could go to the attorney general's office and potentially the courts.

I couldn't begin to guess which side has the stronger case ? labor law is pretty dense ? but I can helpfully imagine for the teachers union what the headlines will be if they happen to prevail:

Teachers win: School day shortened

Union turns back clock on school reform

Students lose learning time as teachers get back shorter schedules

News crews will rush to interview parents at the schools that added extra time this year but will have to take it away in the wake of a union victory. Parents won't be happy.

The commentariat, which has by and large endorsed the longer school day, will join Mayor Rahm Emanuel in describing the ruling as a defeat for children.

The image problem teachers now have (obstructionist, self-interested) will explode into a crisis, which in turn will cost them leverage as they renegotiate the contract that starts next year.

Losing this legal battle would be better for the union, though it would stand to weaken its position should similar fights erupt over other issues in years to come.

Graciously surrendering now would be best.

The union should withdraw its complaint and issue a statement saying something like this:

So far, teachers at only nine of nearly 500 eligible schools have taken the Board of Education up on its request to extend the school day in exchange for a modest bonus.

We don't think this hasty approach has been well-thought-out and we don't think it's fair to students or teachers to rush into such an important reform. But we support the right of teachers at individual schools to disagree with our view and we will consider carefully their feedback as we work with the administration on restructuring the school day, the school year and the curriculum systemwide for school year 2012-13.

At the same time, the teachers union should also continue to advance its narrative about the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where Emanuel sends his children.

In one of its few smart poker plays in this wrangle, the union last week floated a compromise proposal to add 75 minutes to the day ? closely aligning it with the Lab schedule ? and to include in that extra time more of the music, art, phys ed and other enrichment extras enjoyed by students at Lab.

Emanuel's children are off limits, of course. But their school ? elite and excellent, bearing the parental imprimatur of not only Emanuel but President Barack Obama ? is fair game.

A schedule and curriculum fit for its students should be fit for all Chicago students, right?

Source: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/09/legal-victory-would-be-a-pr-defeat-for-teachers-union.html

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