Conference at Ed School Focuses On Racial Imbalance, School Grievances

The education School's Conference on Collective Negotiations in Public Education, after exploring the role of negotiations in settling racial imbalance problems, concentrated yesterday the handling of teachers' grievances.

At Wednesday's session John Ryan, former president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers explained how his union had used collective bargaining to develop "a rationalized system" for filling teacher vacancies which also helped adjust racial imbalance on school faculties.

The arrangement was worked out after Philadelphia's school administration determined in 1964 to integrate staffs without taking teacher preference into consideration. By 1966, the Federation of Teachers decided it could negotiate a better plan by bringing "the experience and aspirations of teachers to the bargaining table." The cooperative agreement included provisions to encourage voluntary teachers transfer and to recruit new teachers for schools that needed them.

The plan, Ryan showed, has had encouraging results. Before the bargaining, 26% of the schools had completely segregated faculties. Now only 3% are completely segregated. "It would have been easier to give 'combat pay' or have forced transfers, " said Ryan, "but the negotiated way gives teachers new dignity and provides inducements to bring new people into the system."

At yesterday's session, Guy Brunetti, Director of Staff Relation for Chicago Schools stressed the need to try to settle grievances at informal, oral meetings before registering formal complaints. He also said that often a teacher who submits "a messy, sticky grievance only wants a little show of appreciation for all his years of service."

Joseph Murphy, Vice-President of the American Arbitration Assn., called for constant moderation in dealing with grievances. "Technology can't put into a machine the cost of a union president's referring to someone's canine ancestry." he said.