This paper examines the effects of declining student enrolment and population loss on one rural school district in the United States, as well as the district's strategies to mitigate these effects. In the state of Wisconsin, the relationship between student enrolment and school funding destabilises rural school districts experiencing population…

It all started when the author's daughter, also a Madison teacher, called her. "We need to call people to the rally at the Capitol." That Sunday rally in Capitol Square was just the first step in the massive protests against Governor Scott Walker's infamous "budget repair bill." The Madison teachers' union declared a "work…

This article examines the legal and political significance of teacher unionization in rural and suburban school districts between 1960 and 1975. While most historians focus on the growth of unions in urban areas, strikes in outlying districts played a determinative role in the development of public sector labor law, particularly in the arbitration…

This reference book on collective bargaining is specifically designed to meet the needs of Wisconsin school boards as they conduct collective bargaining with their employees. The first four chapters supply background information necessary to understand Wisconsin's Municipal Employment Relations Act. Chapter 4 explains the scope of bargaining and…

Examination of arbitration decisions in Wisconsin teacher wage disputes, 1977-86, found that wage increases agreed to earlier by comparable school districts had a substantial impact on the arbitrators' decisions. (SK)

This paper, addressed to public school employers, discusses lessons to be learned from the Wisconsin Legislature's passage of a 1978 law known as mediation-arbitration, which allows employers and unions to agree to an alternative voluntary impasse procedure to the one set forth in the statutes. First, the paper discusses the history of the agency…

The purpose of this bulletin is to describe the current status of proposals for formalizing negotiation procedures between teachers and their boards of education, indicating some potential trends. The entire issue of collective negotiation by teachers remains of relatively recent origin in terms of interest on a national scale, and the directions…

Examines the implications for educational labor relations in the recommendations from "A Nation at Risk." Reviews Michigan's and Wisconsin's employment relations acts and the National Labor Relations Act. (MD)

As faculty and other public sector unions become more sophisticated in collective bargaining, they tend to lay a greater variety of demands on the table. This, in turn, forces the employer to ask, Do I really have to bargain about these subjects? As more employers refuse to bargain, more unions charge them with failing to bargain in good faith,…