A Better Bargain

By Adam Urbanski and Clifford B. Janey

For nearly three decades now, collective bargaining has defined the relationship between organized teachers and district officials. All too often, this relationship has been a hostile one and the institutionalized rancor has impeded collaboration and reform.

Typically, this has been our experience and pattern in Rochester, N.Y., as well. During each negotiation period, the district and the teachers' union were locked in a prolonged struggle over salaries, benefits, class size, school safety, management rights, and so many other important issues. And on this scenic route to an eventual compromise, the entire community would be brought to the edge of a nervous breakdown before somebody figured out how to bring an end to it all. Until the next time, that is.

There are significant problems with the current approach to collective bargaining. It emphasizes precision that impedes flexibility and often serves to reinforce barriers to cooperation. It assumes that adversarial is natural and arguably genealogical, that everything must be standardized, and that just because all is even, then it must be fair. And perhaps worst of all, the current mode relegates negotiations to a once-in-a-while battle—after intervening...