Day 5

Completion of Collective Bargaining took place today. We were able to work to reach agreement with our contract with the board. After three counter proposals, we agreed to a one year deal. Overall, the simulation provided valuable information and insights. Trust/respect must take place for good negotiations to occur. The superintendent must have the trust/respect of the union in order to work towards a settled contract. During our simulation, there were several items that should have gone through smoothly that became argumentative due to these issues. Through the bargaining process, as a teacher, the traditional bargaining approach led my group to ask and try to get all that we could. In today's economic climate, a lot of what we asked for was ridiculous, yet we asked due to the position we were in--we were working to get all that we could get. Our end contract was advantageous for teachers and poor for the district. Looking at alternative bargaining styles will be one of the items I do as a future superintendent. It is crucial that both sides work together and I am not sure that traditional bargaining will allow this in future contracts.