PROVIDENCE — A change of position by one of the state’s teachers unions could pave the way for the state to adopt binding arbitration as a way to avoid teacher strikes. The Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, which represents teachers in 11 districts — including the state’s three largest, Providence, Cranston and Warwick — has recently dropped its long-standing opposition to binding arbitration, which allows the arbitrator to impose the terms of a contract after negotiations between labor and management have broken down.

Binding arbitration can prevent strikes and other labor actions including so-called work-to-rule — when teachers decline to provide tutoring, write recommendations, supervise field trips or attend student events after school hours.

State education officials regard “work-to-rule” as even more disruptive to students than strikes at the start of the school year.

Most recently, in 2007, three districts went on strike, and several more adopted “work-to-rule.” This year, 16 school districts have teacher contracts that have either expired or are due to expire by September.

“We decided to shift our position because the House leadership asked us to give them a piece of legislation that would bring finality to the question of what happens when there is no contract in place,” said Marcia Reback, RIFT executive director. “Given the question, the only mechanism that brings you finality is binding arbitration.”

The state’s other teachers union, National Education Association of Rhode Island, has long supported binding arbitration, and joined with the RIFT recently to mount a $50,000-plus advertising campaign in support of this method to resolve contract disputes.

Robert A. Walsh Jr., executive director of NEARI, said he wants to see a three-member panel making decisions: one selected by a school district’s union, one by the school committee and the third a neutral arbitrator approved by both sides who would likely cast the deciding vote.

“The community’s ability to pay would be one of the factors an arbitrator would have to consider, just as it is with police and fire,” Walsh said.

With both teacher unions in agreement, lawmakers are seriously considering approving a binding arbitration bill for teachers. Rhode Island police and fire already use this method to resolve unsuccessful contract negotiations.

House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox said in a statement that he hopes to have an amended bill ready for a public hearing by the House Labor Committee before the House returns in early September.

“Any version of the bill that I would support,” Fox said, “…would have a binding arbitration process that would save communities from spending money on attorney fees while eliminating the threat of teacher strikes or work-to-rule situations which harm students.”

The Rhode Island Association of School Committees opposes binding arbitration, said executive director Tim Duffy.

In Connecticut, arbitration favors teachers unions more than half of the time, Duffy said, and strains emerge when the final decision is perceived as too expensive for the community to pay.

“Even if a district does not go to arbitration, their [negotiated] settlements reflect what arbitrators have ruled in neighboring school districts,” Duffy said.

The Rhode Island Department of Education is waiting to see the actual bill, said Deputy Commissioner David V. Abbott.

“The devil is in the details,” Abbott said. “We want to see the language of the bill and its scope, and details about what the process will actually look like.”

Teacher strikes and labor actions are rare in Massachusetts, which has tough laws prohibiting teacher strikes and judges who impose stiff fines on striking teachers, said Glen Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.

“The reason strikes almost never happen is because of the fines,” Koocher said. Two years ago, teachers in Quincy went on strike. “In Quincy, the judge imposed a $20,000 an hour fine on the union.”

Connecticut teachers haven’t gone on strike or taken labor actions in decades, since the state adopted binding arbitration for teachers in 1979. However, this system has its fair share of critics.

Recently, the majority of the state’s boards of education, boards of finance and municipal officials who oversee and pay for the state’s 166 school districts signed a petition requesting that binding arbitration be changed, said Patrice McCarthy, deputy director and general counsel for the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, which also signed the petition.

“We want binding arbitration to be limited in some way, either by limiting the issues to wages and benefits only, or by requiring that the arbitrators give greater consideration to a community’s ability to pay,” McCarthy said. “In Connecticut, [binding arbitration] impacts even those communities that never reach binding arbitration, because it forces communities to enter into agreements they don’t want to, because they are so concerned about the cost.” Binding arbitration costs communities tens of thousands of dollars, McCarthy said.

Education officials in Rhode Island have tried to eliminate teacher strikes and labor actions in another way: by changing state law to explicitly prohibit them and impose penalties on teachers who do so, following the practice in Massachusetts and New York.

Current Rhode Island law does not expressly give or deny teachers the right to strike, a nettlesome gray area that has given both sides — labor and management — room for argument for and against teachers’ right to strike.

The state Education Department’s bills “didn’t get any traction in the General Assembly,” said Deputy Commissioner Abbott, and the proposals faded away.Contract watch

School districts with expired or unsettled teacher contracts due to expire by September:

Bristol/Warren

Burrillville

Chariho

Cumberland

East Greenwich

East Providence

Foster/Glocester

Glocester

Middletown

North Providence

North Smithfield

Portsmouth

Tiverton

Warwick

Westerly

Woonsocket

State-run Rhode Island School for the Deaf

Source: Rhode Island Association of School Committees

jjordan@projo.com