This paper examines labor issues that affect school employees. It is divided into four sections: school reform; teacher compensation; scope of bargaining; and collaborative (nonadversarial) bargaining. The longest section, which focuses on various reform movements in the schools, examines accountability, school choice, and the questions surrounding charter employees' entitlement to organize and bargain collectively. It shows that questions surrounding unionization become particularly difficult when they involve religion-based charter schools. The teacher-compensation section looks at the following subjects: compensation and teacher standards, basing pay on knowledge and skills, and the role of supply and demand. Much of the discussion is based on the following guidelines: clearly define the desired result, choose the measure of assessment and consider its feasibility and cost, define the criteria of success and the results necessary to receive rewards, determine the amount of the award, and find ways to discourage teachers from "teaching to the test." The scope-of-bargaining section briefly examines the increasingly narrow range of bargaining for public-education employees. The section on collaborative bargaining outlines interest-based bargaining; the "living contract" (which focuses on common goals among bargaining parties); and the teacher union reform network, which concentrates on improving student performance rather than wages and benefits. (Contains 26 references.) (RJM)