How does SB 538 improve student learning?
01/29/2015

 

Yesterday, Sen. Carlin Yoder (R-Middlebury) presented SB 538 in the Senate Pensions and Labor Committee. ISTA emphasized that at a time when teachers and administrators are being asked to do more when the focus should be based on encouraging employers and employees to work together for children, injecting this unwarranted set of disruptions serves nobody—least of all children.

 

ACTION: Please contact the members of the Senate Pensions and Labor Committee to urge their opposition to SB 538 as an unnecessary, divisive and costly set of state-driven, top-down directives.

 

SB 538 would:

 

1. Require every local school district to undergo an exclusive representation election regardless of whether local teachers and/or administrators believe the current exclusive representative signifies a majority of the members by June 30, 2017.
2. Set up a new, state-driven approach to challenge the status of the exclusive representative when decades old law enables the real stakeholders at the local level to make these challenges.
3. Give the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board (IEERB) new powers that, in effect, gives it the authority to put its interpretation on a salary schedule model on the front end (DOE currently does), and then on the back end. Also, judge whether the collective bargaining agreements fit its interpretation—essentially, IEERB gets to serve as judge and jury.
4. Charge the IEERB to develop a handout on teachers’ rights for both teacher contract issues (IC 20-28) and collective bargaining (IC 20-29). Currently, IEERB is not charged to oversee or implement anything under IC 20-28.
5. Create a new group of entities called Professional Employee Organizations (PEO) that are so loosely defined, it would enable countless groups, committees and companies to claim the right to equal access of teachers–likely resulting in the school board developing the policy of no group access. But, that does not work either, because even school-based groups, like professional development committees, would be unable to have access (as they are considered PEOs under this law).

Yoder’s chief arguments: 

• Approximately 60 elections have occurred in the last 40 years, meaning everyone should be required to hold an election.
• Of the seven teachers he spoke to recently, none claimed to know their rights.
• Other groups should be able to have access to teachers.

He characterized teachers as being confused on what their rights were as well as being without a voice.

 

Sen. Karen Tallian (D-Portage), exposed many of the problems with SB 538, as well as its clear union-busting bent. Sen. Tallian’s comments centered upon the unnecessary costs, inappropriate expansion of IEERB powers and the failure to demonstrate any real need for it and its likely potential for making things “a big mess.”

 

After Sen. Yoder presented the bill, Chairman Phil Boots (R-Crawfordsville) asked IEERB representative Sarah Cudahy to provide the committee with additional information regarding the role and history of IEERB. Most notably, Sarah indicated that IEERB was created in 1973 to help foster harmony between school employers and its employees. She added that IEERB is currently a four-person agency and acknowledged the capacity issues associated with this bill:

• The elections this bill calls for could not be conducted during the bargaining season.
• There is no practical way for IEERB to schedule and conduct 300 elections within this biennium.
• There would be taxpayer costs associated with this bill that require the schedule of elections to go into the next biennium.

The following people testified in favored of Yoder’s bill:

1. Caitlin Gamble, policy director, Hoosiers for Quality Education (lobbying arm for the Institute for Quality Education, founded by Fred Klipsch in 2014; Dr. Tony Bennett serves as its senior policy advisor).  Gamble added that a room full of teachers also told her that they did not know what their rights were.
2. Caryl Auslander, Indiana Chamber of Commerce. 
3. Ed Roberts, Indiana Manufacturers Association. Roberts’ testimony focused on equal access to bulletin boards.

ISTA testified during the hearing:

• The bill is unnecessary, disruptive, divisive, costly and administratively biased. In addition, we noted that it will be considered a field day for lawyers around the state who would take advantage of this bill.
• At a time when all kinds of changes have been foisted on teachers and public schools to inject this kind of unnecessary disruption serves no one—least of all the children.
• Pointed out that part of the reason there are few exclusive representative challenges because teachers are satisfied with the representative they are getting. These matters are well-settled, and when they are not, challenges will occur.
• Noted the irony of this top-down, state-driven set of rules, during the time a 500-page deregulation bill was being considered.
• Eric Hylton, ISTA attorney, provided expert commentary on how things work in the real world versus misstatements made by some of the proponents of the bill. 

Chairman Boots directed that amendments be offered to address some of the concerns as he voiced his own concern over the potential cost for these elections. The bill is likely to be scheduled for a committee vote next Wednesday.