Hearing of the Joint Committee on Public Service
Testimony in Support of HB 530
June 9, 2005
Brad Art, Chairperson, Bargaining Committee
Massachusetts State College Association

Chairmen Kaufman and Buoniconti, for the record my name is Brad Art. I am a professor of philosophy at Westfield State College and a resident of Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Thank you for revisiting Chapter 150E, the thirty year old collective bargaining statute that applies to the state colleges. There is no doubt that your predecessors crafted a useful tool. Unfortunately, there has been significant erosion in the application of the law by successive governors. The law needs to be amended. On behalf of the Massachusetts State College Association Bargaining Committee, I urge your support of HB 530.

Since 1997 I have been the Bargaining Chair for the Massachusetts State College Association. We have negotiated two collective bargaining agreements in that time. The first contract took some 75 meetings, including more than 25 with a mediator. The first round of negotiations included two funded, one-year contract extensions, and a comprehensive three-year agreement. The second contract, now on the governor’s desk, took 46 meetings. It covers fiscal years 2005, 2006 and 2007. We negotiated throughout FY 2004, but could not reach agreement for a contract covering that year, despite the assistance of a mediator. This failed negotiation covering FY 2004 is now in fact-finding.

These are examples of a grueling process. This is not how collective bargaining works in other sectors. It is not how it should work. It is not how the law was intended to work.

The current law gives labor little recourse in negotiation. Strikes are prohibited. This makes even more important the obligation on the employer to bargain in good faith. Because strikes are prohibited in the current law, there is an implicit moral responsibility on management to bargain fairly, to take special steps to negotiate in good faith toward resolution of differences. There is an implicit moral responsibility to avoid exploiting faculty and librarians, or to subject the process to personal whim or political vendetta. Too much is at stake – ultimately the health of the symbiotic relationship between the vitality of public higher education and the prosperity of the Commonwealth.

My comments are not a complaint about the current administration alone. In 1989-1990, the problem with Chapter 150E revealed itself after some 15 years of successful use. Bargaining for approximately a year and a half without receiving any money offer from the higher education employer at the time, around Christmas eve of 1990 the unions were told that if they settled on Governor Dukakis’s terms immediately, he would file the Section 7 appropriation bills before he left office. In his haste to leave office the Governor failed to file the appropriation bills. Incoming Governor Weld refused to honor the commitments of his predecessor and failed to file the contracts for legislative action. Two years later, in recognition of the unfairness of this treatment, the Legislature passed legislation funding the contracts “notwithstanding” Chapter 150E.

With successive governors we have experienced continued deterioration of the relationship in negotiations. In 1995 the state college faculty and librarian union settled a contract on what were represented as Governor Weld’s terms. Then he changed his mind and refused to honor the agreement. The parties had to renegotiate new terms, prolonging the process and harming morale.

In negotiating what ultimately became our 2001 to 2003 collective bargaining agreement, on several occasions the late Chancellor Koplik expressed to us his regret at the unfairness of the negotiating positions he was forced to take, positions he knew were not in the faculty or the state colleges or the students’ best interest. His concern in being able to get a tentative agreement past “the governor’s people” constrained his ability to address mutually recognized issues in salary, benefits, and the operation of the colleges.

The source of Chancellor Koplik’s regrets continues to this day. The dynamic in bargaining has deteriorated too often to “take it or leave it” proposals by management, and stalled negotiations resulting in years of protracted negotiations designed to avoid reaching settlement. Why not! What have “the governor’s people” to lose? They are not on the campuses; they are not on the Board of Higher Education. They do not have to face the consequences of their proposals and stalling tactics. With the current misuse of Chapter 150E, what is lost is negotiation as an exchange of ideas, as debate, as compromise, as a fair process.

Chapter 150E vests higher education collective bargaining in the Board of Higher Education. It is appropriate that the Board of Higher Education, a civilian oversight education board, has autonomy in negotiations with the MSCA. We are not challenging that aspect of the law. We are asking the legislature to revisit the way the law gives bargaining responsibility to the Board of Higher Education, but simultaneously undercuts that responsibility.

The Board is the agency directly connected to the colleges. The Board is responsible for public higher education. As such, it is accountable. The Board is obligated to bargain in good faith, but looking over the BHE’s shoulder, and interfering with bargaining, are “the governor’s people,” who have no legal obligation under Chapter 150E to act in good faith. The reality is, at present, the Board of Higher Education has the authority to bargain only the shifting demands of “the governor’s people,” an untenable position for the Board and for the MSCA.

It would be fair and appropriate for the cost items in a contract negotiated in good faith to go directly to the legislature. I hasten to add the obvious, that even with the changes we request, the executive office will continue to have influence; appointments to the Board of Higher Education remain under the governor’s control. Still, amending the law to support the statutory employer and to prevent the governor from impeding the negotiating process will, we believe, respect the Board, the employees, and the institutions, and will foster an orderly collective bargaining system for public higher education. Thank you for your consideration of my testimony.

For the Committee,

Brad Art
Chairperson, MSCA Bargaining Committee