NASHVILLE – Senate Republicans on Friday evening voted 19-12 to repeal teachers’ unions collective bargaining powers, replacing them with a plan proponents call “collaborative conferencing.”
Court-enforceable memoranda of understanding could be struck on items both school boards and teachers can agree to, but school boards ultimately would call the shots.
Members of the House later debated into night on what could become the defining issue of the 107th Tennessee General Assembly in which Republicans control both chambers for the first time in 142 years.
The bill was the product of a Republican-run House and Senate conference committee that sought to reconcile differences between the two chambers’ different bills to curb the 52,000-member Tennessee Education Association’s powers.
Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, said when he arrived at the conference committee, he found the panel’s proposed report already written, worked out in secret by Republicans.