Present: Pam Costain, Tom Madden, Chris Stewart, Lydia Lee, Sharon Henry-Blythe, Emma Hixson, Bill Green, Dan Lowenson

Pam says that Emma has been put in an unenviable position and she invites Emma to describe this. Emma says that they really haven’t had any negotiations because they “all blew up last Thursday because Rob tried to pull a fast one and didn’t succeed”. 

Emma says that after the last time she talked to the Board, she met with Rob and told him that the administration was ending interest-based bargaining and beginning traditional bargaining.  Emma says that either side of the negotiation has the right to do this.  Emma says that she talked to Rob about how the expectation now was that at the next meeting MFT would bring a proposal, and Rob nodded.  Emma says that Rob then sent a letter that all Board members received [apparently appealing the decision to move from interest-based to traditional bargaining], to which Emma replied saying “the decision’s final, that’s it”.  Emma also wrote the Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS) thanking them for their assistance with the interest-based bargaining process and stating that their services were no longer needed.

Emma says that she then showed up at the next negotiating session and there were three men from the BMS there.  Emma says that she asked the men why they were there and they replied that Rob had called them and told them the negotiation was still doing interest-based bargaining, despite what Emma’s letter said.  Emma then met with Rob and the BMS men to understand what was happening.  Rob asked Emma if she had talked to the Superintendant and Emma questioned why he was asking this.  Rob replied that the Superintendant said that the negotiation would be doing interest-based bargaining that night.  Emma replied that “we are not going to be doing interest-based bargaining tonight and the Superintendant didn’t say anything different”.  Emma says that they then disagreed and “got a little nasty”.

Emma says that Rob is scared of the whole traditional bargaining process, and he should be.  Emma says that in her most recent conversation with Rob he said that MFT would not be ready for the next planned negotiation session, so they were looking at possible dates further out.

Emma says that traditional bargaining is not as advantageous for MFT, because “you get into tradeoffs”.  Tom and Pam ask if traditional bargaining has been used before and Emma replies that they have never done traditional bargaining with the teachers during her ten-year tenure and Dan adds that it has been at least 25 years.  Emma says that this means that the teachers don’t know how to do traditional bargaining.

Tom asks if the traditional bargaining sessions are open to the public and Emma confirms that they are until mediation.

Pam says that they may have some communications/public relations issues here because a letter has gone to “the entire staff” accusing Emma of operating on her own and such things.  Pam says that she has heard from some people that the district needs to clarify the situation officially.

Bill says that the administration talked about this and said that they are concerned about Rob’s voice being the only voice that is heard.  Bill says that they are concerned about the possible “fair labor” issues of the administration sending a communication out to just the teachers.  Bill notes that recent communications from Rob are in violation of an agreement about communications regarding the negotiations.  Bill says that they are thinking both about what the response to this should be and to whom should the response go.  Bill says that he is interested in sending out a more “blanket” communication to the general public, but they are still investigating the fair labor implications of such communication.

Chris asks “and the Board still says nothing?”

Tom says that the administration should reply in a very factual way, describing what traditional bargaining is and what interest-based bargaining is. 

Bill says that he is routinely meeting with Rob, a practice that Emma disagrees with.  Bill says that in his last meeting with Rob, Bill said “Tell me Rob, do you have problems with teachers being the right fit with schools for stability?”  Rob replied “I have no problem on that”.  Bill asked Rob why he didn’t “have a conversation on that” and Rob replied that all anyone wants to talk about is interview and select. Bill replied that people want to talk about what the issues are around interview and select and how it might work, and that there is value in just talking about it.  Rob replied that interview and select becomes a barrier. 

Bill asked Rob again about “the principle of fit and stability” and Rob replied that they could have a conversation about that.  Bill asked Emma to bring up this issue at the negotiating table, which Emma apparently did, but Rob was focused on the “procedural things” of mediators and interest-based bargaining and the conversation never happened.

Bill says that it is his sense that Rob got nervous at the prospect of having a conversation that wasn’t controlled by procedure or adversity.  Bill says that Rob has managed to “cut off real discussion, real candor from his team” and that he suspects “we are dealing with a person who prefers an adversarial relationship to one that is collegial, at this stage”, yet “we are at the point where he has to put a proposal on the table and that adds more anxiety to him and his team because they have never done that before”.

Pam returns to an earlier topic and says that she agree that if “we can resolve the legal things” that she wants the administration to make a statement, but rather that describing “the facts”, as that Tom suggested, Pam suggests that the district should say “this is what we are trying to achieve in the contract, we stand ready to negotiate with partners…”.  Pam says that she doesn’t think that it is an argument of traditional versus interest-based bargaining.  She suggests that the district should say that they “have now been in negotiations for several months, these are the principles that we have gone into it with, this is what we want, and at this point, we seem to be at a loggerjam.”  Pam says that it is time for the district to let the union and the public know their stance in this, because right now, Rob has had the last word.  Tom adds that Rob has had “the only word for four months”.  Pam says “We have to start communicating.”

Chris says that specifically, the Board needs to communicate. He says that people are asking about where the Board is in the negotiating process, but the Board seems to be throwing the responsibility for communication to the administration.  Chris suggests that the Board should communicate and the administration should negotiate and that if the Board took the lead on communications, it would give the administration “the high ground” in the negotiations.

Chris says that Emma and the district team were reporting at the negotiating table that “the Board is firm on what that they want”.  Chris says that to him says that the Board would communicate while the administration negotiates.  Chris says that it is a Board problem when the Board tells that the administration to communicate but then wonders why this communication doesn’t happen.  Chris says that he is getting email saying “you guys are absent”, so people have “no clue” where the Board stands on the negotiating process.

Emma says that people should know where the Board stands, because the Board issued a statement about goals for the negotiations.  Emma says that what she asked last time was that the Board “stick with that”.  Emma says that she doesn’t have any problem with communications that stay to the broad parameters that the Board defined for negotiations.  However, Emma says, she would prefer to “keep this” at the negotiating table and “we haven’t really even started negotiating in a lot of ways”.

Pam says that this is very different from previous negotiations because there are a lot of people watching and listening, and “we” are not communicating with those people.  Pam says that she gets lots of questions saying “what’s your side up to? Are you holding firm or not?”  Pam says that she is not advocating that the Board make a statement that is “not in concert” with the administration, but she really thinks that they can’t leave all of the communication to Rob.

Bill says that he agrees with that, and that in that spirit “we are moving on communication planning scenarios”.  However, he says, this is “real, real delicate stuff now”, in part because Lynn Nordgren works in the administration building.  Bill says that Lynn is an MFT negotiator and that she is also making a run for the MFT presidency.  Bill says that “this is a porous building” and that doing the typical things “planning scenarios…we run the risk of tipping our hand to Lynn that we are preparing for a strike, in the worst case”.  Bill says that he assumes the “people are real anxious on the other side of the table”, that he thinks “we still have time to take our time” and he says that “we need to move forward in that communications plan, but we need to be very deliberate in how we proceed”.  Bill says that is why he wanted to get opinions from labor attorneys and to have Emma do more research about “the parameters of a statement that we make”.

Bill says that he understands that it is not enough for the Board and the public to have the administration just “hear a recitation of what was already presented”.  Bill says that he thinks “we can give something more…but this is a very explosive moment now.”

Chris says that it’s not just Rob, but others who are making public statements that are falsehoods, which are “aggressively anti-administration and which go unaddressed”.  Chris says that there is a one-way system of communication and he thought that all of the communications were supposed to be joint communications.  Emma says that they were supposed to be.

Tom says “then, at a minimum, we should call him on that”.  Pam asks “Isn’t there a labor-relations lever to pull on that?” Emma laughs and responds “No.”

Tom says “I just don’t like getting punched in the face every fricking day, and I can’t respond.  At some point you’ve gotta punch back to falsehoods”.  Tom says that we did this list of “things we believe in” which basically said interview and select and that we want it to be a mutual deal, but, he says “there are two people who are really annoying me in this process, Rob and Dan” because “they are setting the rules and as soon as they leave the room they play by their own rules”.

Tom suggest that the Board could recap what they said at the beginning of the negotiations process and then remind folks that the contract has to be in place by “x date” and the negotiations need to be finished by “y date”, so here’s where we are in the process.  Tom suggests that they could say “we have run into some dead ends on some things …or whatever”, but really we just want to reiterate what we went into negotiations with.  Tom suggests that this communication could say that one of the agreed-upon things was an understanding about joint communications, which has been broken, but which the administration is still trying to abide by.  Tom says that this would be pretty hard-hitting if said on TV.  He says it would reiterate that “we haven’t moved”, but it would also say “you can’t play crap with us and get away with it”.  Tom says that this would be a very calm, professional way of making this point.

Bill says that the key point he hears Tom saying that is that we are presenting “what has gotten us to this point” and “the breaches of the relationship that he has done” regarding making unilateral public statements.  “With falsehoods” adds Tom.

Lydia says that Emma is not working alone on these negotiations, that her actions are based on what “we are saying here in this room”, and that it is unfair for her to be taking all of the flack on this. Lydia says it is unfair to say that the Board is not engaged.

Pam suggests that one thing a statement could say would be that the Board and the administrative team are unified. Lydia agrees and Tom suggests a statement saying where we are at, what the deadlines are, that there were some hiccoughs, that there was a breach in our agreement regarding communications and that we are still firm on the eight or ten principles that the Board articulated at the beginning of the process.  Pam asks Tom if he would be willing to do a draft of that and Tom agrees.

Emma says that she has already drafted something and that she will massage her draft a bit.  Pam says that “we” will investigate the legal side.  Emma says that “we” need to consider how and where to release such a statement. Pam asks the administrators what they think about the message coming from the Board. 

Bill says that the message Emma is referring to is a separate message from what Tom is suggesting.  Emma says that she does have a statement such as Tom’s written.  Bill asks about how such a draft could be sent to the Board and Pam states that it should not be emailed and they wonder if it could be done by US mail.  Pam says that it is important that they move really quickly, since it is “sitting out there as an allegation against all of us”.

Bill says that another option is that the Board could “come in” and look at a draft in groups of two or three.  Pam confirms that working this way is something they have done in the past.

Sharon says that in her past experience, that Board has always been quiet at this point in the process, and that she thought there was a reason for that if it was a legal constraint or something else.  Sharon says that regardless if that is true, she would rather “take the high road here”.  Sharon says that “He has done some things and he is running scared as he is trying to lower the level of discussion”.  She says that she would like a statement to say that “we believe that the commitment of the teachers, of the families and of we as the Board is to get through this together”. Sharon says that she thinks the Board shouldn’t address “his shenanigans” in a communication, but rather just stay above it.

Chris says that he agrees that the high road is the best option, but he thinks that message should be delivered and delivered more often so that it does not look like the Board is absent.  Chris says that he thinks it may be possible that Rob sent them each a copy of the letter on the off chance that the Board was not aware of what was happening.

Emma says that she thinks there are some “divide and conquer” efforts going on.  Bill says that Rob is not above baiting people and that may be one of the reasons he sent the Board a copy of the recent letter.

Lydia says that people do need to understand that the Board is not absent from this process and that Emma does get direction from the Board.  Emma says that there is no reason why the Board could not say that they are closely following negotiations and that they are concerned about the time it is taking.  Emma says that she thinks “we” could come up with something that “you” can work with that’s legal.

Dan says that Emma’s resistance is not to negotiate publicly.  Tom says he understands that concern but he doesn’t think they are at risk of doing that because “we” haven’t talked since the process started.