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Director of schools' unions to retire
© St. Petersburg Times, Although it has been years since Carl Harner has stood before a classroom full of biology students or directed school operations from an administrator's seat, his influence has permeated the schools in Citrus and Hernando counties for 25 years. As executive director of the employee unions in the two districts, he is the man who has sat across the bargaining tables from district administrators, fighting for pay raises and better working conditions. He has stood by workers accused of misconduct, represented employees with grievances against their bosses and served as the conscience of the two county school boards where teacher issues are concerned. At the end of the month, Harner, 65, retires to enjoy the travel and hobbies he has had so little time to pursue because of the demands of his job. "It's the end of an era," said Pam Pate, past president of the Citrus County Education Association, which bargains for teachers and some support workers in Citrus County. "We're losing a lot of valuable knowledge. He knows where the bodies are buried, and we hope he passes on the burial sites to the new executive." "He's never told me something that he didn't do and wasn't true," said Edd Poore, director of human resources and staff development in Hernando County schools. "I'm going to miss that." Starting his teaching career in 1960, the Chicago-born Harner spent several years in the classroom before becoming an assistant principal. But about that time, changes in the state law made teacher unions an attractive option, and national unions came to Florida drafting school district teachers to sign up and stand up for their rights. That's when Harner stepped into the union arena, serving as president of the state organization for three years before moving to the regional office in Ocala. "My observation was that the teachers needed an advocate," Harner said. Through the years, Harner has watched how the Citrus and Hernando communities and schools have grown and changed. The process of bargaining contracts for teachers in the two counties has changed too. From the beginning, Hernando administrators bargained directly with teachers. In Citrus, in the mid 1970s, district officials hired a professional negotiator named Richard Zweiback. "He would negotiate, hold out, negotiate, hold out. And then maybe there would be some movement. That went on ad nauseam," Harner said. "Murphy learned from him." Murphy is Ed Murphy, chief negotiator for the Citrus County schools. He has headed the district's team since Zweiback left more than 20 years ago. Over the years, Harner and Murphy invoked Zweiback's name now and then, sometimes in jest and sometimes when negotiations got stressful. "That precipitated a lot of the unrest, a lot of the low morale, a lot of the picketing and a lot of the working to the rule," Harner said of the Zweiback approach. But over time, the methods have softened. "Bargaining has progressed from an extremely adversarial situation, pounding on the table and shouting, to at least a form of collaborative bargaining," he said. Hernando County also has had its share of rough spots, but Harner said he thought the contract bargaining process there worked a bit more collaboratively than in Citrus. "But, yes, they also have a long way to go," Harner said. Collaborative bargaining, where the parties try to sort out common goals rather than trading proposals across a table in an effort to wear one another down, has been a focus for Harner in both counties in recent years. Still, politics sometimes gets in the way. "There is still in my opinion a vestige of the good old boy system in Citrus, and in Hernando maybe somewhat, but not to the degree in Citrus County," he said. He thinks there were two reasons the counties grew in slightly different directions. Hernando has grown at a faster rate and has an appointed superintendent. Citrus has stayed smaller and kept the elected superintendent, setting up a different political structure. Harner said there would always be clashes between negotiators because they had to work for the interest of their team. With Murphy in Citrus, "It's a relationship which has grown. We still have our differences of opinion but a certain trust level has developed," Harner said. Murphy agreed. "You battle, but we've always come back around full circle because each of us has a job to do," Murphy said. "You build a relationship with an individual that you feel is pretty trustworthy ... I can talk to him. We can talk to each other and that's something we'll have to work on" with the new executive. Pate, the past union president in Citrus, said Harner's departure comes at a time when the union is getting a new president, Terry Flaherty, and the administration team is also going through some changes. "It's a chance to adjust, a chance to start anew," she said. In Hernando County, Harner clashed strongly with a previous negotiator, Larry Spencer. "That was based on the fact that he was using what I would consider the old system of bargaining, and we were striving to use collaborative bargaining," Harner said. He has had more cooperation since Spencer left the post several years ago, and he said Hernando officials have been more cooperative in problem solving. "Carl has a vast knowledge of the law concerning collective bargaining and teacher rights," said Poore, the human resources and staff development director. "That always is helpful even though we have disagreements over certain things. We do agree on procedure and process." He said Harner has also been well-prepared and able to keep issues in perspective, all traits that saved time during bargaining and resolving disputes. "Carl's a good man," Poore said. "He's going to be hard to replace." Harner's replacement is Sandra LaGarde, who comes to the job after 14 years working for the roughly 7,000 school district employees in Orange County. A collaborative bargaining trainer, LaGarde said she looked forward to working with the local unions and promoting cooperative problem-solving with administrators. Harner's advice to LaGarde so far has been simple: "Be patient. Study the scenario and be open." Although he is encouraged about the merger of the two major teacher unions and the clout that gives teachers politically, Harner said he saw some major potholes ahead for public education, including the teacher shortage, budgeting concerns, public versus private education systems and the pervasive problems of drugs and violence that have become a part of the schools. He hopes his handprint on the history of the Citrus and Hernando schools has been a positive one. "History will tell that part," he said. "I'd like it to be that I had a willingness to attack a problem and openly discuss it and solve it."
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