Hearing of the Joint Committee on Public Service
Testimony in Support of H2697
June 7, 2007
Ken Haar and Jean Stonehouse
for the
Massachusetts State College Association

Chairmen Kaufman and Downing, for the record we are Profs. Ken Haar, President of the Westfield Chapter of the Massachusetts State College Association and Jean Stonehouse, President of the Bridgewater Chapter. We represent MSCA, the union that represents 2800 faculty and librarians at the nine state colleges. MSCA President, Prof. Patricia V. Markunas, is unable to be here to testify because she is representing our members at a contract negotiation session today.

In September 2004, the MSCA Board of Directors voted unanimously to support legislation to change the collective bargaining process. On behalf of the Board and the membership of the MSCA, we urge your favorable report on H2697, which would amend the state's Collective Bargaining Law (Chapter 150E) to allow our employer to submit contractual cost items directly to the Legislature for consideration.

Simply put, the collective bargaining process for the public higher education affiliates is broken and it needs to be fixed. Our statutory employer of record, now the Board of Higher Education, does not have sufficient legal authority to negotiate in good faith with us and our sister unions. Since 1990, five different governors from both political parties, acting through the Office of Administration and Finance, have stymied negotiations through the use of pre-legislative vetoes and bad faith bargaining tactics. The subversion of the collective bargaining process has demoralized the faculty and damaged the system's national reputation, causing difficulty in national recruitment and retention of faculty. Ultimately, this will mean great harm to the quality of the education provided to the students of the public higher education system.

The collective bargaining statute as it exists allows the governor too many opportunities to thwart the bargaining process. Every possible roadblock that a governor could erect in the collective bargaining process has been used over the past 15 years: refusal to provide economic parameters for negotiations, refusal to submit ratified and executed contracts for legislative action, reneging on economic offers made and accepted at the bargaining table, and vetoes of the funding for contracts authorized, ratified and executed by the governor himself or herself.

A review of MSCA bargaining history provides several examples:

1989-1990: After approximately a year and a half of bargaining without a money offer on the table, we reached agreement in December of 1990 as Governor Dukakis prepared to leave office, an agreement based on the Governor's promise that he would file the Section 7 appropriation bills before he left office. He failed to do so. Governor Weld refused to honor the commitments of his predecessor and did not 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.

1995: We settled a contract on Governor Weld's terms. He subsequently changed his mind and refused to honor the agreement. The parties had to renegotiate new terms, prolonging the process and harming morale.

2005: Governor Romney refused to send the Legislature an agreement reached in good faith based on his own parameters. The parties returned to the table faced with additional "take it or leave it" demands including giving up the fact-finding process then underway regarding 2004, a year for which our members faced and subsequently received no pay increase.

Governor Patrick has promised that he will never use these disgraceful tactics. In common with his predecessors, he set the financial parameters for the negotiations taking place right now. Unlike his predecessors, he will do what is right and submit an agreement reached in good faith to the Legislature for funding. The proposed amendment to Chapter 150E is intended to commit his successors to act in good faith as well.

This amendment would not affect the governor's constitutional veto power over any bill passed by the Legislature. It would remove pre-legislative opportunities to stymie negotiations and veto contractual cost items by failing to submit them for legislative action. It would allow the employer of record, the Board of Higher Education, to negotiate contracts and submit the cost items for their funding directly to the Legislature. In this regard, the Board's authority would be the same as other state agencies and the judiciary, which have functioned appropriately in terms of the collective bargaining process.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee, the members of the MSCA have long appreciated the fiscal support afforded by the Legislature to the state's public higher education system and to its employees. We are asking for this further show of support; this time (you might be happy to see) it's a non-monetary request.

We ask that you correct this problem in the collective bargaining process so that legislative action to remedy bad faith tactics of future governors will no longer be necessary. The faculty and librarians of the state colleges want the process to work in good faith. This amendment, in helping the process, will, in the long term, help our membership, our institutions, and our students.

Thank you for your consideration of this legislation and our testimony in support of it.

Ken Haar
President, Westfield/MSCA

Jean Stonehouse
President, Bridgewater/MSCA