The New WEAC

Fear the Rottweiler. That toughest of junkyard dogs has been bred to protect, trained to attack. He is a vicious mélange of teeth and sinew that needs little reason to attack. It is what he does.

Such is the image built up around WEAC—the Wisconsin Education Association Council – the rough, tough teachers union that has had its way with governors and legislators. To pick a fight with WEAC is to invite a bloody nose.

But, while few people realize it, that image has faded as surely as a sepia photograph. The junkyard dog image of WEAC is a dated caricature from a bygone day. The reality is quite different. The reality is that the WEAC of today bears little likeness to the WEAC of the past. The reality is that WEAC retains little of the confrontational union that ran the show in the halls of the Capitol in Madison and in school board rooms throughout Wisconsin. The reality is that the WEAC of today looks much less a Rottweiler and much more a Poodle as it pads comfortably among the elites in and around Wisconsin government.

Once the caricature is replaced with reality, the prism through which so many issues are filtered begins to yield a different picture. And no picture is more radically changed than the one that raises the blood pressure of conservatives everywhere: the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO).

This is an especially timely discussion as control of the Wisconsin Legislature hangs in the balance with the upcoming fall election. While it is widely believed that the state Senate will remain in Democratic hands, the Assembly is altogether another matter. With a mere five vote majority and a nation anxious to blame Republicans for both the war in Iraq as well as the weak economy, Republican retention of an Assembly majority is definitely in play. If the Assembly were to tumble into Democratic hands, Democrats would control all of state government. At long last, the thinking goes, WEAC will rise up and ensure its minions in the Capitol do what they have promised; expunge the QEO from state law books.

But is that the case? Maybe not. That picture might have been clear a few years ago, but it is less clear today.

The QEO Through Time

To understand the roots of the popular caricature of WEAC, a short history lesson is in order. As we close in on a generation under the QEO, it is easy to forget what life was like before Tommy Thompson signed the QEO into law. In the 1980s and into the early 1990s a statewide furrowing of the brow and wringing of hands occurred every Christmas season when local governments slid property tax bills into our mailboxes. In 1989 school taxes rose 9% followed by a 9.4% increase in 1990 and a 10% jump in 1991. The last straw came in 1993 when schools added 12.3% to the property tax bill. Of course every year the school tax was layered on top of the tax bill from cities, villages and town so property taxes were routinely increasing at double-digit rates.

While property taxes might not have stirred the public psyche as much as say the Vietnam War had, it was close. Every state budget discussion started and ended with property taxes. It was the third rail of Wisconsin politics. The property tax discussion drove a wedge between Democrats and Republicans; it caused short fuses between state and local governments and between general governments and schools. And everyone understood who was operating the jack that kept ratcheting up property taxes: it was teachers.

No, it wasn’t just teachers, it was WEAC. What generations of teachers had known as a helpful service organization, overnight had assumed the pale of a hard-line labor union. It was as though WEAC had undergone its own version of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The side of the organization that provided teacher services was taken over by the union side. Overnight it became clear that nothing mattered to the staff at WEAC if it didn’t entail: raising teacher pay, protecting jobs, or improving working conditions. This was the familiar mantra of every labor union from the autoworkers to air traffic controllers.

The metamorphosis of WEAC was designed and guided by Morris Andrews, an import from labor-savvy Michigan. Under Andrew’s direction, WEAC put staff in place who understood Wisconsin law and Wisconsin lawmakers. The organization beefed up its cadre of bargaining and arbitration experts as well as its lobbying corps. It also became a campaign force by contributing money and ground troops to friendly legislators. The organization did battle on multiple fronts to secure higher salaries for teachers and it didn’t care who was roughed up along the way.

The secret behind WEAC’s success was pattern bargaining. They did their homework, found the weakest school boards and squeezed the most money for their members out of them. Salary settlements in those weak districts became powerful data, which WEAC turned around and used to bludgeon arbitrators into siding with teachers in every other school district in the area.

Technically, it was local teachers sitting at the bargaining table, but it was the crew from WEAC headquarters telling them what to do and how to do it. They had discovered the magic formula for their members and they used the playbook so often that it became dog-eared. Morris Andrews and his staff never batted an eye; never apologized for doing what every labor leader in America was paid to do, increase wages.

On the other hand, Tommy Thompson was not one to sit idly by and watch property taxes go into the stratosphere. As he entered his second term, he set his sights on reigning in property taxes, meaning he set his sights on reigning in teacher salaries.

The budget Thompson signed in 1993 included a five-year cap on school spending, restricting increases to inflation. But the budget also included a provision that limited teachers’ ability to arbitrate salaries, as long as the increase offered was 3.8% (a handful of exceptions have since been added). And just like that, Wisconsin’s property tax deluge subsided. The skies over Wisconsin cleared and property tax increases were instantly lowered. The first year under the new law saw statewide tax increases drop from 12.3% to 5.7%. The following two years, the total school tax rose less than 2%.

It was predictable that in the very next budget, the Legislature bought into Thompson’s plan to make the revenue caps and the QEO permanent. Taking advantage of a windfall from a super-heated economy, Thompson and legislative Democrats were able to add $1 billion to state school aids, boosting the state share to two-thirds of school costs. In what has since become legend, Thompson created the three-legged-stool which included the extra funding, revenue caps, and the QEO.

Of course the education community, led by WEAC, sputtered and bellowed. But the deal was done. If school boards or teachers thought it unfair, they could take their complaint to the people via referendum. It turned out the people were more than willing to support more spending for new buildings. Higher spending for teacher salaries did not fare so well.

And so Wisconsin reached stasis in educational finance. And little has changed since—except WEAC.

The New WEAC

The new WEAC bears little resemblance to the organization of the early 1990s. The old WEAC had a swagger borne of victory upon victory over local school boards. Whereas the taxpayers of the state viewed double-digit property tax increases as tyrannical, WEAC saw them as a badge of honor. But when Tommy Thompson signed the QEO into state law, a sea change occurred in WEAC.

This is not to say that WEAC became a weak organization. As long as it was able to collect fair share dues from members with the certainty and efficiency of the IRS, it has continued to be a force. But it is a different force than it once was. Several observers have noticed that the WEAC of today is more cerebral, more genteel.

Gone is the WEAC with a laser-like focus on teacher pay. In its place is a WEAC that, after fifteen years, seems resigned to life under the QEO. In the early years of the QEO the entirety of WEAC was dedicated to the repeal of the onerous law. They wanted to return to the bargaining table and drive up teacher salaries. They held rallies, they supported bills to repeal the QEO, they worked to replace legislators who seemed less than dedicated to the repeal, but in the end, they saw the handwriting on the wall. With Tommy Thompson in the East Wing of the Capitol, nothing would change. WEAC needed a more friendly face in the Governor’s Office.

After biding their time while Scott McCallum filled out Tommy’s last term, WEAC finally got its man. As if walking off the pages of Education Week, Jim Doyle was just what the doctor ordered. He came equipped with a genuine liberal pedigree and a wife who was a teacher. And he didn’t disappoint. In one of his first major speeches he announced that the war with teachers was over.

Only, nothing really changed. The QEO remained.

It was at that point that people began to notice a change in WEAC. Was it that the organization had confused winning the battle for the East Wing with winning the war against the QEO? Perhaps, but whatever the reason, WEAC’s interest in the Legislature began to wane. They were not nearly as engaged either in campaigning or in twisting arms behind closed doors in the Capitol.

Something indeed was going on in WEAC. The organization had changed right before our eyes, only very few people noticed. After Morris Andrews left, the organization selected a series of executive directors, each one less bombastic and a bit more erudite than the one before. The whole organization took on an analytical pallor. Passion had been replaced with pragmatism. The lexicon of the new WEAC was sprinkled with terms like collaboration, cooperation, and coalition. It no longer relished being the neighborhood bully—it wanted to be the smartest, most popular kid in school. After years of cultivating a John Wayne image, WEAC now wanted to be seen as Gig Young.

Might the days be gone when WEAC was a militant union with thousands of members willing to put skin in the game for their cause? It would seem that way. The last gasp might have come in a few years ago when a group of teachers attempted to get a one-day strike vote approved at WEAC’s annual convention. But the new WEAC quashed the movement. Could it have been that the new WEAC saw a strike as too confrontational, not collaborative enough? Regardless, the new WEAC had firmly established itself in the driver’s seat.

The New WEAC: Who Are These Guys?

For those who were unconvinced, those who continued to walk on the other side of the street to avoid the Rottweiler, the events of the summer of 2007 sealed the deal. That was the year that Governor Doyle did what he had promised; he included in his budget the elimination of the QEO. Doyle’s was no half-hearted initiative: he didn’t want to soften the salary cap, he didn’t propose a holiday from the QEO; his budget simply eliminated the provision. Gone!

Throughout the Capitol, people girded for the battle. It would be just like the old days they thought: spenders vs. taxpayer groups—good fireworks, great theatre. Yet before a single shot was fired, the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee pulled the item from the budget. As they explained it, the Governor’s proposal to eliminate the QEO couldn’t stay because it wasn’t a fiscal item. Their rational must have mystified teachers who had seen their salaries capped for fifteen years. To the average teacher, it couldn’t seem possible to get more fiscal than that.

But the new WEAC, rather than calling teachers to muster stations, opted not to fight this time. Instead, the leadership of the new WEAC chose to explain why the item had been pulled. WEAC President Stan Johnson expressed “disappointment” that the measure had been dropped from the budget. Then he gave this peculiar explanation:

[T]he Legislative Fiscal Bureau has again determined that the repeal of the QEO would not have a fiscal impact. That means that opponents of the repeal can no longer argue that repealing the QEO would have other negative fiscal consequences.

So there was no call to muster stations, and no battle. There was just a glum acquiescence. It was all quiet on the WEAC front.

The changed thinking that defines the new WEAC is not limited to the union captains on Nob Hill. It has saturated the organization. It is an approach that resonates with WEAC members throughout the state. One local president recently said that it made no sense eliminating the QEO until the state provided relief on the revenue caps. That kind of thinking would have constituted blaspheme inside the union fifteen years ago.

The more muted message of today inextricably links teacher pay with the bigger issue of education finance. It is a rather wonkish message, not the type one would normally expect from a labor union.

It is quite astonishing that WEAC would set sail on such an oblique course while the ranking of teacher salaries continues to decline; from 14th in the nation when the QEO began, to 26th today. It is astonishing that the membership has acquiesced to such a course. But this is the new WEAC. Stagnant salaries seem not to ignite the passion they once did. Yes, this is the new WEAC: bookish, cerebral, convivial. It is an organization no longer intent on getting its way by bashing its opponents; it would rather convince and cajole them.

Above all, the new WEAC seems mystically focused on a rather big picture. Some of their members might be surprised to discover that the QEO is only a small piece in the mosaic in the new WEAC’s vision. It is indeed a big picture. It is a picture so big that few people in the Capitol, where the fate of the QEO rests, are likely to get their heads around it.

The new WEAC’s big picture includes their Great Schools initiative. This warm and wet ad campaign seemed originally aimed at softening the image of the teachers’ union. Now several years into the campaign, the message they hope to get across to their members is that the public will one day wake up and see the havoc that has been wrought by the revenue caps.

The new WEAC is also mesmerized by the economics of school finance. The old WEAC simply wanted to make sure its membership was served as much of the school finance pie as its plate would hold. The new WEAC seems more interested in fairness and value. The new WEAC was a full participant in Governor Doyle’s Task Force on Educational Excellence, signing off on the murky recommendation that the elimination of the QEO might, “free teachers, administrators, and school boards to engage in creative collaboration necessary to address salary structure, health insurance and appropriate incentives to foster student achievement. . . .” The new WEAC also sat in an advisory role helping UW Professor Alan Odden answer the academic question of how much money is needed to fund education in Wisconsin. Odden’s well-intentioned work received little attention either inside or outside the Capitol. But this seemed insignificant to the new WEAC. They somehow took energy from just having the discussion.

The latest big-picture painting by the new WEAC is an effort called the Wisconsin Way. As a founding member of the Wisconsin Way, WEAC is sitting cheek by jowl with other lobbying groups including the Realtors, the Road Builders, and the Counties. The members of the group describe themselves as having a unique partnership. On that point they would get little argument. But a dues-paying member of WEAC might ask what this unique partnership has to do with getting teachers higher salaries. The answer from the new WEAC would go something like this: by examining megatrends one can see that the current mix of taxes cannot support the level of government spending that will be needed in the future. They would also argue that the mix of taxes is all wrong, given Wisconsin’s contemporary economic profile. The group seems likely at some point to deliver a dissertation calling for lower property taxes and higher sales taxes. It is difficult to see how these big, meaty issues will engender change in the State Capitol where school finance discussions have historically begun and ended with a printout.

The new WEAC pushes on, helping its rank-and-file members to see the big picture. In this big-picture world of the new WEAC, it would be anathema to push for an end to the QEO if it is not part of a broader move to restructure school finance. And, if the Wisconsin Way gains traction, the new WEAC would probably favor tying all of this to an overhaul of Wisconsin’s entire approach to government finance.

There are two schools of thought as to what explains the change in WEAC. A more cynical thread argues that, like any large organization with a steady cash flow, WEAC has become comfortable. There isn’t the fire in the belly as there once was when the union was involved in large and small skirmishes throughout Wisconsin. These cynics maintain that life under the QEO, while pinching the pocketbooks of teachers, really hasn’t been so bad for the upper echelon in the union. Fifteen years under the QEO has changed WEAC’s focus. If somehow the QEO was lifted tomorrow, the new WEAC would be ill-equipped to provide the strategy, leadership, and foot soldiers that successful contract bargaining requires. The Nob Hill offices are full of empty cubicles that once housed the experts in bargaining and arbitration.

Other observers disagree and point out that the organization has simply matured. The old style of confrontation simply doesn’t fit in today’s world. The union either had to change or face the erosion that has afflicted many other unions. WEAC, they maintain, can either be part of the solution or part of the problem. To them, the path chosen by the new WEAC is the one that will yield long-term health for teachers and teaching. Only when Wisconsin adopts a more modern approach to taxation and only when Wisconsin has reformed its system for financing local schools, will teachers see competitive pay and benefit increases. Keeping an eye on the broader picture will yield, not the good old days, but the good new days.

For good or bad, the demise of the old WEAC is complete. Gone are the salivating roughnecks who enjoyed leaving behind a wake of battered and bruised school board members and politicians. Those who cling to that old caricature of WEAC run the risk of underestimating the organization, not unlike the way many people underestimated WEAC in the 1980s.

To be sure, there remain vestiges of the old WEAC, which explains their move to limit enrollments of virtual schools. Also, it is likely that ducks will learn calculus before even the new WEAC backs away from their opposition to parental choice.

However, were the Democrats to gain control of the State Assembly, we shouldn’t expect WEAC to push for dynamiting the QEO. A more likely scenario is that they will push a comprehensive reconstruction of education finance, a move that holds the potential for having much broader support than simply blowing up the QEO and taking the lid off of school spending. It also holds the potential for digging deeper into the wallets of Wisconsin taxpayers.

As with the aftermath of the Soviet Union, the rise of the new WEAC could possibly change the face of Wisconsin politics and government in ways that no one can predict. A perceptive yard sign for today might read: Fear the Poodle.

 

George Lightbourn is Executive Vice President of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and former Secretary of Administration for the State of Wisconsin.