Kansas House advances bill on teacher-school board collective bargaining

The Kansas House unexpectedly voted Wednesday to advance changes to collective bargaining between public school teachers and school boards based on a compromise those groups agreed to in January.

The chamber gave first-round approval to a bill that would allow school boards and teachers’ unions to each bring five issues up for discussion during negotiations, in addition to salary and work hours. They can currently discuss dozens of issues, from pensions to vacation time.

The 67-52 vote, a surprise victory for the education groups, came after Rep. Sue Boldra, R-Hays, replaced a competing conservative bill’s language with the compromise provisions. That bill would have allowed non-union teachers to negotiate separately for pay and school boards would not have been required to extend to them deals reached with the union. That language was stripped from the version that passed.

Boldra said she was not confident until Wednesday that the compromise would have a chance to pass, but she said after increased lobbying by school superintendents, it gained more support in the chamber.

The school boards and teachers unions came to the compromise agreement after 18 months of negotiations, and representatives of both sides have said they would not support alternative terms.

“We continue to beat up on teachers, we continue to devalue them, and this is one victory for them,” Boldra said after the session.

Rep. J.R. Claeys, R-Salina, said that because the majority of teachers in the state are not members of the unions collectively bargaining their wage and work conditions with the school boards, the original bill would have given them greater freedom.

But Rep. John Doll, R-Garden City, said in the 20 years he worked as a teacher that was not a member of the union, the bargaining units would still update him and other teachers on the talks and gather their input.

“I lived that for 20 years. I didn’t belong to the union, and I had a lot of say-so; I felt I had as much say-so as I wanted to have in negotiations,” Doll said.

This story was originally published February 25, 2015 at 11:45 PM with the headline "Kansas House advances bill on teacher-school board collective bargaining."