Workplace democracy?
Today’s K-12 teachers did not vote for Education Minnesota.
Our country relies on free and fair elections, participation of the electorate, and the knowledge that office seekers will have to earn our vote every election cycle. But unlike presidential or other local political elections, teachers’ unions are not required to stand for reelection once they are certified. That’s by design.
When Minnesota K-12 educators begin their teaching career in the state’s public school system, union representation simply comes with the job. Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers’ union, has had a monopoly on labor representation for years. In fact, teachers in Minnesota’s K-12 schools are exclusively represented by a union and collective bargaining framework that has not been evaluated by teachers or lawmakers since its formal enactment in 1971. Most — if not all — current K-12 teachers never had the chance to vote on which union they want to represent them, or whether they even want union representation.
Education Minnesota has exclusive representation rights as a matter of law. It collectively bargains on behalf of both members and non-members even though teachers are no longer forced, as a condition of employment, to financially support the union. But regardless of membership status, teachers still have no way to assess their exclusive representative relationship with Education Minnesota.
In fact, there is no better example of “do as I say, not as I do” as Education Minnesota’s “commitment” to “workplace democracy.” It brandishes this as one of its core institutional objectives, yet it largely remains a principle, not a practice. On paper, public employees legitimize their representation through a secret ballot vote in favor of union representation. In practice, the vast majority of K-12 teachers in the classroom today have never voted in a union certification election. The union that represents them was chosen by its members back in the 1970s, and without a requirement to ever hold a vote and reestablish majority support among the collective bargaining unit of educators it represents, workplace democracy turns out to be a very limited idea.
PELRA
In 1971, on the heels of dramatic and, at that time, illegal strikes, Minnesota enacted the Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA). This granted public-sector unions the right to bargain collectively for government employees, including teachers. (Unions were recognized as the bargaining agent prior to PELRA under the Minnesota Labor Relations Act.) It also gave teachers and other types of public employees the opportunity to vote for or against union representation in what is called a “certification election.” These elections are conducted by secret ballot.
Secret-ballot elections
The Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS) is a state agency established in 1969 charged with collecting voting data from secret-ballot certification elections for unions’ exclusive representation rights. Employees looking to hold a certification election must first gather support from 30 percent or more of their colleagues through signed union authorization cards, and the union looking to be certified then files a petition for an election with BMS. If the union gets 50 percent plus one more vote of all eligible votes, the union wins the certification election.
BMS has a record of a certified teachers’ union at 318 out of the 330 school districts currently in existence. (According to BMS, not all school districts have teachers’ union certification data records on file perhaps due to school district mergers or because the school districts and/or teachers’ union never petitioned BMS to help with bargaining unit certification elections.)
But not all teachers in these districts were given the opportunity to vote for their union when it was certified, or subsequent to certification.
An analysis of archived certification data from BMS found that, from 1957 to 2023, only 58 out of the 318 school districts on record at BMS held a secret-ballot certification election for exclusive union representation of K-12 teachers. That is only 18 percent over a 66-year period.
Furthermore, most of those elections occurred during the 1970s. In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a prolonged battle between the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) over which national union would control Minnesota territory. Minnesota teachers who were given the opportunity to participate in a certification election were asked to pick which union they wanted to affiliate with — the Minnesota Education Association (MEA) in association with the NEA or the Minnesota Federation of Teachers (MFT) in association with the AFT. The turf wars did not end in a “winner take all” victory. Instead, following a 1998 merger, the MEA and MFT became Education Minnesota, which affiliates with both the NEA and AFT and is why Minnesota teacher union members pay dues to both.
Since 2000, only five K-12 teachers have voted in a certification election, according to available teachers’ union data from BMS. That certification election was held in the tiny Pine Point Public School District (Becker County) in 2000 with five votes in favor of exclusive representation by Education Minnesota out of a total of eight eligible votes.
Union recognition without a vote
Certification elections were not the only way teachers’ unions were recognized as the bargaining agent. Many incumbent local teachers’ unions were recognized under a so-called “grandfather clause.” With no formal showing of interest required, or an election held, “grandfathered” unions represented teachers without giving them a vote.
Other local unions were recognized by “joint request” — the union becomes officially recognized as the exclusive representative through a joint employer/employee request (school district and union) when more than 50 percent of employees support the union. This “joint request” was submitted to BMS along with signed authorization cards substantiating majority support.
Additionally, local unions were recognized by “voluntary recognition agreements,” with the employer (school district) deciding to “voluntarily” recognize the union if the union shows “convincing” evidence through signed authorization cards that a majority of teachers want union representation. The employer foregoes an election and accepts the union’s proof that a simple majority of teachers want the union to represent them. The employer then notifies the union and BMS, and BMS certifies the union as the exclusive representative without a vote by teachers.
Given that most of the teachers’ local unions were recognized in the 1970s either by grandfathering, joint request, or voluntary recognition, and a smaller number by actual certification elections, it is fair to conclude that, aside from the five votes in 2000, the percentage of K-12 teachers in the classroom today who voted for (or against) the current union representation is nearly zero.
The problem of “inherited” unions
Because unions do not have to stand for reelection after being formed, and given that it is difficult for public employees to request a decertification election to remove an unwanted union, most current K-12 teachers are represented by a union they had no say in electing. This is a union that has almost completely avoided members’ votes for 50 years.
It’s hard to know how many Minnesota teachers would vote for Education Minnesota if given a choice now. Full dues-paying members are eligible to vote on the contract negotiated by the union with their employer, and they have the opportunity to vote on union leadership, so shouldn’t they also be able to vote on whether or not the union — which has the exclusive power to represent all teachers, including non-members — has been representing them well?
As of the most recent available data, covering Sept. 1, 2023 through Aug. 31, 2024, membership in Education Minnesota has not rebounded since the teacher exodus back in 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court freed educators and all other public employees from having to financially support a union in order to do the job they loved. In fact, since that High Court ruling (Janus v. AFSCME), Education Minnesota membership is down over nine percent.
Teachers are saying “no thanks” to union membership for a variety of reasons. Perhaps one reason why is not being able to put into practice the workplace democracy they deserve.
One way to rectify poor representation is to require recertification elections of bargaining units on a regular basis. This would extend Minnesota teachers’ voting rights and give them a say in choosing who represents them and how. It would also be an opportunity to hold unions accountable through regular elections.
Our neighbor to the east requires annual union recertification elections, which give Wisconsin teachers the right to vote for their representation in the upcoming collective bargaining for the school year. If teachers are not satisfied with the union, they can assess their exclusive representative relationship through a secret-ballot re-certification election. Educators have a greater voice in the future of their union, and it creates greater accountability for unions. Minnesota teachers should have this same opportunity.