Teachers Unions To Begin Voting On Union Recertification

Teachers in more than 200 school districts across the state will begin voting on Wednesday whether to re-certify their unions.

Such elections became an annual requirement in 2011 for public-sector unions that want to bargain wages. The Act 10 provision prevents specifically bans teachers unions from bargaining with districts unless more than 51 percent of teachers in the district vote in favor of the union each year. Even if the union wins, it can only bargain for base wages — not for any other conditions of employment.

John Matthews, the executive director of Madison’s teachers’ union. He said the union has begun campaigning for re-certification this year, even though it already has a contract in place.

“We have the only contract in the state for next year, but I think simply with the philosophy of the folks around Madison that the district would have bargained with us anyway,” said Matthews. “One of the things that it has done is gotten us into more of an organizing mode than we have been in for many years.”

MTI hasn’t had to hold an election since it first won recognition in the 1960s. Matthews said that before Act 10, all 424 school districts in the state had union contracts.

Christina Brey of the state’s largest teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said that in districts that don’t re-certify, unions still exist but have chosen to focus on issues other than wages.

“A lot of those are very active in organizing parents in the community around school issues,” she said. “So rather than jumping through hoops that these barriers through re-certification create, they just decide to go a different route.”

Last year, 60 percent of the teacher bargaining units in the state held elections, and more than 90 percent of those won. The elections that begin on Tuesday continue through Nov. 25.