Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

You asked how many municipal and education (teacher and school administrator) collective bargaining contracts in the last three years (1) have been settled and (2) how many were resolved through an arbitration award. Of the instances where arbitration wage awards were granted, you also wanted to know whether any pattern indicates if the town or the union are more likely to win.

SUMMARY

This report looks at three years of contracts arrived at under the Municipal Employee Relations Act (MERA) and the Teacher Negotiation Act (TNA), the two separate state laws that govern collective bargaining for these groups. In general, a small percentage of contract negotiations were resolved by binding arbitration awards for the period fiscal years 2000-01 to 2002-03:

� Municipal contracts (which include non-certified employees of school districts), 5. 4%, and

� Teacher and school administrator contracts, 8. 6%.

For this period, arbitration began for 737 municipal employee agreements under the Municipal Employee Relations Act (MERA), but only 40 actually resulted in arbitration awards. The rest resulted in negotiated agreements reached before the arbitrators made a decision. Under the Teacher Negotiation Act (TNA) for the same period, 302 contracts were settled, but only 26 came down to arbitration awards. The rest were settled in negotiation, mediation, or through a stipulated arbitration agreement (an agreement made during the arbitration process, but before an award is made).

For this period, arbitrators decided on 150 general wage increase issues (80 under MERA and 70 under TNA). The decisions were virtually split with 76 accepting the union's last best offer and 74 accepting the town or school board's offer. The MERA cases were more likely to produce awards favoring the town or school board than the TNA cases. Officials at the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration, the body that administers the MERA mediation and arbitration process, noted that most arbitration cases involve much more than just general wage issues and examining wages alone may not provide a full picture, or even the full financial impact, of a case. Other issues in these cases can include employee health insurance contributions, pension benefits and contributions, and longevity pay, plus an array of issues that may not have much of a financial impact.

Data for this report comes from reviewing arbitration cases at the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration and from the State Department of Education's annual listing of the settlement status of teacher and school administrator negotiations and copies of awards on file at the department.

� Please travel to the following website to view the complete report:� http://www.cga.state.ct.us/2003/olrdata/lab/rpt/2003-R-0759.htm