The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.

I have read and listened to many opinions and perspectives on Wisconsin’s municipal collective bargaining law prior to Act 10 and after. I also had a front row seat on the implementation of Act 10 as a Commissioner for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC). I would like to add a perspective that has been overlooked to date – that of the effect that the previous municipal collective bargaining law had on the students and student learning.

In the early 1970’s, as a teacher at a college in the Wisconsin Technical College System, I was a spokesperson for the teachers’ group prior to organizing as a Union and again after formally becoming a Union. I left the College in 1977 to join another Technical College as head of Human Resources.

Over the course of thirty plus years I have negotiated numerous collective bargain agreements and reviewed many as a Commissioner with the WERC. In the early years, the focus in bargaining was on the language of the whole contract document. In the later years it was reduced to negotiating changes in a few paragraphs, and finally mostly to words and phrases. Once in the bargaining agreement the language stayed in. In all those years I never saw any contract language that directly benefited students or student learning. That shouldn’t be a surprise.

Unions are in business to represent their constituents regarding their hours, wages and conditions of employment. They did that very well. The losers in the process were students. The collective bargaining agreements had become an albatross to educational change. A provision in the old law required Boards to negotiate the impact of proposed policy changes with the union. Eventually, School Boards, Management, and Unions all used the collective bargaining agreement as an excuse not to implement or even pursue new ideas for student learning because the implementation became too costly and onerous.

One can imagine the bargaining chaos would be in today’s environment where schools are partnering with other schools to provide students with expanded educational opportunities. To me the greatest outcome of Act 10 was it removed the obstacles like the duty to bargain the impact. The old law requirements created costly and detrimental fire walls to new ideas in teaching and learning processes. In other words, with Act 10, boards and management had freedom to lead and implement new initiatives. All teachers, not just the most senior, could be free to try new teaching concepts that enhance student learning.

Reinstatement of the Wisconsin collective bargaining law as it was prior to Act 10 would be the greatest injustice we could do to the hundreds of thousands of students in 421 school districts that depend on Wisconsin public schools to be their path to the future.

– Rodney Pasch, PhD, served 35 plus years as a teacher and/or administrator in Wisconsin Educational Systems. Pasch previously served as president and member of the Wisconsin Technical College System Board, a member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, commissioner for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission and consultant/evaluator for Commission of High Learning and North Central Accreditation.