For the past forty years the Kansas City School District has sat down every year to negotiate a labor agreement with the Kansas City Federation of Teachers. Some years the negotiations were difficult and prolonged, dragging on into fall semester, but even if the parties had not agreed by the start of classes in late August, teachers were assured that the terms of their old agreement would apply until a new one was signed.

Thus this year’s refusal by the school district to maintain the terms of the 2007 agreement when it expired on June 30th and its unilateral implementation of some of its proposals in the middle of negotiations is a dramatic rupture which has profoundly angered teachers.

On July 31st Interim Superintendent John Martin imposed new terms on the teachers taking away working conditions they had won over years of negotiations. The new rules reduced their planning time from ninety to fifty minutes per day taking away time used to prepare classes, have team meetings, do peer observation and family advocacy. The new rules also increase management authority to pull teachers and librarians from regular duties to substitute for other classes leaving planning undone and school libraries locked. Martin’s imposition of unlimited “professional development meetings” outside of the normal workday with no limits at the whim of administrators is a further imposition on people who are already donating many extra hours to student activities and additional planning.

The teachers have held several rallies appealing to the School Board to stop Martin, but so far the Board is backing him up. In late July in closed session they voted four to three to let him impose these changes. At the August 13 Board meeting about 200 Kansas City teachers wearing bright blue T-shirts demonstrated outside and went into the meeting waving signs demanding good faith negotiations.

Part of the problem is that there’s no state law and no board policy requiring that both sides bargain in good faith. At the latest board meeting Union President Judy Morgan addressed the Board and talked of negotiating sessions that were cancelled by the district and of offers by the union to meet which were rebuffed by management. The last negotiating session was July 30, and another isn’t scheduled until August 20.

Only one board member commented on Morgan’s speech. Duane Kelly, a former teacher, gave district and union negotiators some homework. He asked them to please define what they think good faith negotiations means.

After the meeting another board member, Airick West, said he wants to know the same thing. He even asked Judy Morgan to get the union to draft a policy on good faith negotiations for the board to consider saying he thinks the most useful thing he can do is put a policy in place to help the district and the union reach an agreement.

What Duane and Airick are asking for has existed for decades in the private sector, and also in states where public employees’ rights are protected by law. The National Labor Relations Act says employers must, “meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. . .”

The NLRA makes failure to bargain in good faith an unfair labor practice. One of the things outlawed is the imposition of changes in the midst of negotiations. The National Labor Relations Board web site states: “the duty of an employer to bargain includes the duty to refrain from unilateral action, that is, taking action on its own with respect to matters concerning which it is required to bargain, and from making changes in terms and conditions of employment without consulting the employees’ representative.”

Last year, after a lapse of sixty years, the Missouri Supreme Court finally restored to public employees their constitutional right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. It’s now incumbent on the School Board to follow the constitution by implementing policies which require administrators to respect those rights.

In their absence, teachers will be forced to take direct action to protect the conditions they’ve negotiated over the years which make it possible for them to teach children. On Monday, at a very well-attended union meeting members voted unanimously to decline to volunteer for after school programs and do anything beyond their normal workday if there is no contract when school starts August 25.

At Wednesday’s rally Ann Pritchett, a veteran teacher, said that without a contract, “Everything is up in the air. They can impose anything they want.” When asked what it meant to lose half of her planning time she said, “Well how would you like to lose half of the time you have to get ready to do your job every day? The worst thing about this whole deal is that the school year is starting. We should be enthusiastic; we should be excited; we should be well rested and ready to jump in and start off a wonderful year with our kids. Instead we have this stress to deal with.”

So why is the district doing this? Why do they want to pick a fight with the teachers when they have such daunting challenges as frequent turnover at the top, accreditation issues, and the threat of state takeover? We asked Duane Kelly this question. His response was scary. He said, “I have wondered if you were trying to mess things up, and you were trying to destroy the district and wanted the state to take over what would you do any differently? And I doubt we’re going to get an answer on that. It would be hard to answer.”

The union is asking people to call school board members and ask them to insist that the district negotiate a contract and stop implementing changes without negotiation.