"One of the highlights was maintaining our insurance benefits," said Sandy Skaar, AHEM president. "We also won additional money in the salary schedule above what [the district] originally proposed."

The gains didn\'t come without effort, however.

Some 250 Anoka-Hennepin teachers attended a recent school board meeting in a display of solidarity. All wore red. And for two weeks, Anoka-Hennepin teachers "worked to rule" — cutting back on the many hours of extra time they normally spend involved with school activities, grading schoolwork, and so on.

"Teachers tend to put in significantly more time than they\'re paid for," Skaar noted, and the two weeks of work to rule vividly reminded the administration of that fact.

"Reaching a settlement was in some ways connected to getting our levy passed," she added. Without the levy, the district would have faced a $42 million deficit.

"The fact that we passed the levy with the support of all our union brothers and sisters really helped us at the bargaining table," Skaar reported. "We thank everybody," she said, noting in particular the work of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council in support of the levy.

Reprinted from the Labor Review, the official publication of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council. Visit the CLUC website, www.minneapolisunions.org