See You In Court – September 2026

The Nutmeg Board of Education is negotiating with the Nutmeg Union of Teachers (NUTS) this fall for a successor collective bargaining agreement, to be effective July 1, 2027.  Ms. Chairperson named a negotiations committee composed of herself, Mal Content, and veteran Board member Bob Bombast, who is serving as Committee Chair for negotiations. 

After studying the current contract for much of the summer, Bob had many questions and concerns about the contract, and he brought a long list of proposals to the meeting to prepare for negotiations.  However, Ms. Chairperson and Mal did not want to pick a fight with NUTS, and Mal told Bob to relax: “If we don’t like the way things are going, we can always make proposals later.”

          At the first meeting between the Board Committee and NUTS, Bruno, chief negotiator for the teachers, presented ground rules that the parties have used in the past.  However, Bob was impatient to get started, and he told Bruno that the parties should not get hung up on ground rules and should just get on with it. 

“Have it your way,” Bruno responded.  He then proceeded to announce that the NUTS team had surveyed the membership and was prepared to present its proposals.  “We have been selective, and we have limited our proposals to the changes that we consider essential for the welfare of Nutmeg teachers.  Is the Board ready with its proposals?”

          Bob responded with uncharacteristic candor.  “We are still working that out.  For now, we will just hear what you guys have to say.”

Bruno then presented NUTS’ contract proposals, a relatively short list of demands that include more time off, no change in health insurance, and a significant salary increase.

          Bob responded on the spot.  “Additional time off is a non-starter.  The Board’s substitute account is out of control, and more leave time would just make it worse.  Don’t waste your breath further – we won’t be negotiating over additional leave time.”

          The discussion of salary did not go much better.  NUTS proposed a 4% general wage increase plus step movement for each of three years.  Bob was irate.  “Are you crazy?” he asked rhetorically in response.  “Hasn’t NUTS heard about the affordability crisis?  The good people of Nutmeg are hurting, and they cannot be expected to pay additional taxes to fund salary increases for teachers.  Let’s just go with the current salary schedule and come back next year to see if things are better!”

          The Board and NUTS met for negotiations one more time, but the stalemate continued.  The Board maintained its position that any salary increases should be deferred until next year, and the Union persisted in its demand for a salary increase and more leave time.  At the end of the meeting, Bruno declared impasse.  He also accused the Board of bad faith bargaining, and he announced that NUTS has filed a charge with the State Board of Labor Relations.  “If we end up in arbitration,” he warned, “we will be asking that the Board pay for our attorneys’ fees as well as the costs of arbitration.”. 

          Should the Nutmeg Board of Education be worried about Bruno’s threat?

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          Before addressing the merits of the Union’s unfair labor practice change, some general comments about negotiations with teachers and administrators may be helpful.

          The Teacher Negotiation Act (TNA)governs teacher and administrator negotiations (and the Municipal Employees Relations Act (MERA) governs board of education negotiations with its non-certified staff, e.g., secretaries, paraeducators, custodians, food service, nurses (as well as town and city negotiations with their municipal employees).  While the timeline for negotiation under MERA can be extended by mutual agreement, negotiations under the TNA are subject to a rigid timeline that is driven by the budget submission date.  The premise of this rigid timeline is that negotiations (including arbitration, if necessary) will be completed before the board of education must submit its budget request to the town so that the board of education is aware of the projected costs of the successor collective bargaining agreement.

          Negotiations must commence 210 days before the budget submission date (which differs from town to town), and boards of education are required to “meet and confer” about negotiations with the appropriating authority in their towns during the preceding thirty days.  The parties then have only fifty days to negotiate before they are required to name a mediator, and thereafter they must conclude negotiations or mediation in the following twenty-five days.  At that point (the 135^th day before the budget submission date), the arbitration process begins.

Teachers (and all public employees in Connecticut) are prohibited from striking, and the General Assembly enacted binding arbitration procedures in 1979 after a number of illegal strikes by teacher unions.  Since its inception, arbitration under the TNA has been “last best offer, issue by issue,” meaning that the arbitration panel must choose the last best offer of either party on each issue in dispute, and the panel may not award its own compromise position on any issue.  While the process has its critics, there have been no teacher strikes since 1979, and the overwhelming majority of teacher negotiations are resolved through negotiation or mediation without need for arbitration.

Turning to the negotiations in Nutmeg, we first note that Bob eschewed the need for ground rules.  That was unwise.  While agreement on ground rules is not always possible, ground rules can be important in establishing the procedures for exchanging and limiting further proposals as well as addressing the question of confidentiality of negotiations.  Bob was overly quick to start negotiations without ground rules.

Given the Board’s intransigence in negotiations, NUTS filed an unfair labor practice charge with the State Board of Labor Relations, the state agency that oversees compliance with the good faith bargaining provisions of the TNA.  Significantly, intransigence (otherwise known as firmly maintaining a position) is not an unfair labor practice per se.  The TNA defines the duty to bargain in good faith as follows:

“to negotiate in good faith” is the performance of the mutual obligation . . . to meet at reasonable times. . . and to participate actively so as to indicate a present intention to reach agreement . . . but such obligation shall not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession.  (Emphasis added).

Given that good faith bargaining neither requires agreement on any issue nor requires the making of a concession, Nutmeg had every right to insist that any salary increases should be deferred.  However, it would be a challenge for Nutmeg to prevail with that position.  Arbitrators place great importance on settlements reached in other negotiations, and it has been years since a wage freeze was either agreed in teacher negotiations or awarded in arbitration. 

By contrast, Bob’s response that the Board would not negotiate over additional leave for teachers was indeed a violation of the TNA.  Saying “no” to a proposal can be good faith negotiation, but a board’s saying it will not negotiate over a proposal on a mandatory subject, no matter how unacceptable the proposal may be, is indeed a failure to bargain in good faith, which is an unfair labor practice.