Anaconda Teachers' Union averts strike

Sept. '09 - The best strike is one that never happens.

MEA-MFT members in the Anaconda Teachers Union (ATU) proved that to be true this summer. They also proved that the right to strike can be a pivotal tool in the collective bargaining process.

ATU members came within hours of hitting the bricks in a strike September 1, after the Anaconda School District refused for months to bargain with them in good faith.

In a knuckle-biting, last-ditch mediation session August 31, ATU negotiators and the school district finally reached an agreement just hours before the strike was to begin.

“We never would have reached an agreement if ATU members had not been so well organized, unified, and ready for a successful strike,” said MEA-MFT Field Consultant Tom Burgess. ”It was textbook perfect.”

How it came to this. With ATU’s contract due to expire Aug. 31, ATU members entered contract negotiations with the school district in April to bargain a successor agreement. They met with a stone wall.

Anaconda’s new superintendent “came to the table with the express purpose of gutting our contract,” said ATU President Shawn Hansen. “I believe he wanted to split the union. Instead, he brought us closer together.”

“From the very first session, we knew we were in for a dogfight,” said Burgess. “The district came in and dropped an atomic bomb—a proposal that gutted benefits and language that had been in ATU’s contract for decades.”

ATU’s bargaining team submitted a counterproposal, but the district refused to discuss it. After just three meetings, the district demanded mediation.

ATU members filed an Unfair Labor Practice charging that the school district failed to bargain in good faith. They also voted to authorize a strike.

After a couple of fruitless mediation sessions, ATU’s 18-member bargaining team presented its last best proposal on the back of a strike sign. ATU President Hansen appointed a strike team. ATU members built signs, set up a strike office and phone tree, and made t-shirts. ATU designed a media plan, and for two weeks the union took its case directly to the Anaconda community through newspaper ads.

Door to door. With school due to begin Monday, August 31, ATU members spent the prior weekend going door to door in the community, gather-ing hundreds of signatures in support of the teachers.

That Sunday, ATU members gathered on a prominent street corner with signs and petitions, wearing their t-shirts.

“We practically had a traffic jam, with people honking and stopping their cars to sign the petitions,” Burgess said.

The last mediation session took place August 31. For the first time, all school board members attended. “Only one board member ever came to the previous sessions,” Burgess noted. “The board was never committed to bargaining. That’s what ignited the fire in ATU members.”

“If we had been meeting face to face all along, we would have finished the contract in June,” said Hansen.

Finally, just after midnight, ATU and the district struck a deal. “We are grateful that when the board finally engaged, we made enormous progress,” Burgess said.

Unity. “The Anaconda Teachers Union was perfectly led and perfectly united,” said MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver. “ATU’s determin-ation and unity won a solid agreement.”

“MEA-MFT was awesome,” said ATU President Hansen. “Anytime we had questions, they had the answers.”

Congratulations, ATU!
Bravo to ATU President Hansen, his bargaining team, bargaining chair Sonia Moscolic Andrews, strike team chairs Sara Novak and Kari Corbitt, door-to-door organizer Angela McLean, bargaining support team chair Carlton Nelson, paras’ and secretaries’ reps Pat McKay and Rhonda Vauthier, and all ATU members!

THANK YOU to these unions who stood up in support of ATU members!