Union cheap shots in Evergreen Park

While the teachers strike in Evergreen Park

by Paul Kersey

While the teachers strike in Evergreen Park – seven days long and counting – has not drawn the attention that the earlier Chicago strike did, the conflict in District 124 is quite revealing of the character of the teachers unions and the flaws in our labor laws.  Last Monday night, as negotiations were still underway, the Evergreen Park Federation of Teachers held a public forum.  I attended to get a better sense of the controversies and personalities involved.  The following are my observations and comments:

It appears that the Evergreen Park Federation of Teachers is reaching for every advantage they can in their negotiations with Evergreen Park School District 124.  In at least two cases the union and sympathizers seem to be resorting to cheap shots.  The law calls for unions and school districts to bargain in good faith.  At this point it is doubtful that the union is meeting that standard.

At Monday’s public meeting the union called attention to the fact that the district did not send a representative.  More than once the argument was made that the district must not really care about the kids, or must have had something to hide, because they did not respond to the union’s invitation.

Here’s why this was a cheap shot: Setting aside the fact that this was a union-organized event and hence not automatically a fair forum, there were negotiations taking place at the same time that 200 or so parents listened to union officials presenting their side of the story.  The school board was in a bit of a quandary; some of their members would not be available on Tuesday so if the contract could not be settled on Monday night, school would be closed for at least two more days.  One could just as easily infer that the union did not want to bargain in earnest, because key union personnel were away from an important bargaining session.

If the union was negotiating in good faith, it would not be criticizing the board for prioritizing an actual bargaining session.  And if the union wanted, in good faith, to hold some sort of joint public forum, they would coordinate things with the board in advance as opposed to setting up their own event and then inviting the board to send a spokesman afterward.  Parents in Evergreen Park should ask the union why they couldn’t have waited a day to hold their forum on a night when there wouldn’t be any negotiations.

Some union members got a little carried away by their frustrations with the school board, got ahold of the personal phone numbers of some board members and then they put them on picket signs urging people to call.  One person in attendance, either a school board member himself or aligned with the school board, claimed to have received late-night and early-morning calls from blocked phone numbers.  When asked about it at Monday’s public forum, union officials did not deny that any of this took place, but claimed that the union did not sanction this act.  However the union did not announce any action to prevent overzealous members from doing similar things in the future.

This was obviously a cheap shot, a clear attempt to intimidate or harass.  The only question is who exactly is responsible.  Even if the union is not directly responsible, they stand to benefit from it.  The temptation for union officials to look the other way is strong, but board members should not be harassed because they are looking out for the interests of the community as they understand it and resisting union demands.

If the union wants to bargain in good faith, it should disown this sort of action in no uncertain terms.  Parents in Evergreen Park should ask the union if it will cooperate fully with an investigation into who was responsible for this, and allow those involved to be fired or suspended.

There is a larger point to be made about all this.  In spite of the union’s cynical public relations and failure to restrain its own members to prevent a serious violation of privacy, the district is still required to negotiate with them.  The union’s basic trustworthiness is doubtful at this point and it is especially difficult to negotiate with people you cannot trust.  Yet that is exactly what the law demands.  And when it is all said and done the district will almost certainly sign an agreement that guarantees the union will receive membership dues or agency fees from all teachers, meaning the district will be essentially funding the same union.  The Evergreen Park teachers strike is yet another example of the perverse incentives created by Illinois labor law.