Opinion: High School Teachers' Union Dominated by Militant Leadership

By ROGER J. KEMPA

OPINION: The Hinsdale High School District 86 teachers’ union is dominated by both militant union leadership and negotiation strategies. The bottom line is quite simply “greed,” the historic characteristic of management originally causing union creation, and now, the same characteristic applicable to the demise of unions.

The union has followed traditional hard core strategies:

Avoid public negotiations.Make an unrealistic settlement offer and stick to it with little or no deviation.Don’t settle until school has already started.Blame the School Board negotiation team as insincere, uncaring of the students, out to destroy the union, etc.Call upon need for federal mediation due to no board cooperation.Authorize a strike.Picket the board as being unfair.Attack and cloud the most relevant facts/information furnished by the board as being erroneous and inaccurate.Threaten and intimidate board members, their families, their children.Neutralize a unified board position via union supported and sympathetic board members.

The union has completed the above tactics, and probably feel good about its bargaining position. Their average annual compensation is $111,000. The board is offering a 1.7 percent compensation increase, insulting to the union, which seeks a 5.3 percent increase. The board is being fair but judicious in spending tax dollars of citizens who elected them. The union has no open meetings or other forum open to the public. All is done in private as such openness is a known extreme liability. If your entire family makes $111,000, would you turn down a 1.7 percent raise?

Roger J. Kempa

Darien