Statement on recently concluded contract talks with DFT

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Detroit Public Schools CEO William F. Coleman, III issued the following statement in response to the tentative agreement reached with the Detroit Federation of Teachers:

This is a victory for the children of this city. This agreement means that our children will not be cheated of their future.

From the beginning, our objective was to have schools start on time. We also wanted to ensure that the enrollment campaign was not derailed. With the labor talks behind us, we can team up with our unions to market our schools and to recruit more children.

I am grateful to Rev. Wendell Anthony who stepped in and used his extraordinary facilitation and mediation skills to make this happen. This would not have happened without him. I am grateful to the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity. They’d been coming to our negotiations for several weeks to urge us to break the deadlock.

I am also grateful to all the other unions. They stepped up. They considered the various options for cuts and proposed them. Some stepped up sooner than others, but ultimately they all stepped up and we are deeply appreciative.

Unlike the other unions, the DFT had a wider menu of options to choose from in order to make these cuts work. We understood the need to keep the members of the DFT from becoming the least paid teachers in the tri-county area. It would have been bad for morale and for recruitment and retention. We could not afford that. We had to work with each other.

Working with all of these unions, we met our financial targets. We are very relieved.