The new school year brought with it a new wave of labor unrest as teachers in districts large and small returned to school without new contracts and thousands took to the streets.
Detroit teachers went on strike at the end of the week, with talks between union leaders and district officials continuing. In Gary, Ind., union and school officials announced a tentative agreement Aug. 31 to settle an 11-day strike.
For Detroit, the strike comes at a particularly difficult time. Enrollment there has plummeted and the district is struggling to dig out of a $200 million budget hole. The district was expected to start the new school year on Sept. 5 with 119,000 students, down 40 percent from the late 1990s.
About 35 schools have closed or moved to other campuses since the end of the 2004-05 school year. (“Detroit schools struggle to stop losing students,” July 12, 2006.)
Union and school leaders in Detroit continued negotiations around the clock, and district officials promised to open schools on schedule. Superintendent William F. Coleman said in a statement this week that the district will make a decision on strike-related layoffs by Sept. 6. The strike began on August 28.
Teachers in the city want a 5 percent raise for the next three years, but the district wants them to take a 5.5 percent cut and increase insurance costs.
Lekan Oguntoyimbo, a school system spokesman, said all district employees were asked to take a pay cut to close the gap in a total budget of $1.4 billion. “We have no choice,” he said. “Financially, our backs are against the wall.”
Teachers who did not come to work once school opened would lose wages for the days they were absent and their union would have to pay a fine of $5,000 for each day the strike continued, Mr. Ogundoyibo said.
Insurance premiums are rising
But Jewell Gould, director of research for the American Federation of Teachers, the parent organization of the 9,500-member Detroit Federation of Teachers, said teachers have made many concessions in recent years, including accepting pay freezes, loaning work days to districts and reducing sick leave days. The district instead gave bonuses to administrators last December, Mr. Gould said — a move that surprised teachers even more, he added, when school officials asked for further concessions.
Union officials who monitor teacher protests say labor rumblings are common at the start of the school year because contracts often expire at the end of the previous year and labor and management have been unable to reach an agreement over the summer.
While the protests are no more widespread this year than in recent years, they are more visible because of strikes in larger districts like Detroit, Mr. Gould said.
Teachers in other large districts, including the 58,000-student Boston Public Schools, had to return to school before contract negotiations were completed, according to the AFT. Others, like those in the Pittsburgh and Toledo, Ohio areas, haven't seen wage increases in a while. In Philadelphia, meanwhile, teachers are suing the district over pay cuts.
“It's very difficult to get around the country,” Mr. Gould said, citing rising health care premiums in particular.
Outside observers agree that the cost of health care makes collective bargaining more difficult. Myron Lieberman, a union critic and president of the Washington-based Education Policy Institute, a research and advocacy group, agreed that health care costs have risen, but added that the raises for teachers are no greater than in the private sector. sector where workers have been asked to pay more. “If you look at the data, teachers have a better deal than private sector workers, and they're trying to hold onto that,” he said.
In at least two of the districts where teachers were on strike this week, Gary and Huber Heights, Ohio, higher insurance premiums were a sticking point.
In the 6,800-student Huber Heights district, 500 teachers and support staff members reached a tentative agreement Aug. 31 after a weeklong strike. And in the 900-student Wolf Branch, Missouri district, near St. Louis, 50 teachers returned to work this week after a six-day strike.
Huber Heights Superintendent William Kirby said health insurance costs for the district will increase by more than 11 percent this year. Teachers were offered a 3 percent raise over two years, with some increased insurance costs.
“Health insurance is an unpredictable, uncontrollable risk for all school districts,” Mr. Kirby said. “We have to spread the cost.”
Rising costs and deep budget deficits in recent years that have tied up districts' ability to raise teacher pay are often blamed for sparking strikes, but the issues can vary.
Debra Owens, spokeswoman for the Huber Heights Education Association, said teachers also want smaller class sizes and a tougher crackdown on student violence.
In Indiana, the Gary district had offered the 1,000 striking teachers a 2 percent pay raise for three straight years — 2005, 2006 and 2007 — but also asked them to pick up 10 percent of the health insurance tab instead of 7 percent.
Superintendent Mary Steele this week sent a letter to Gary teachers warning them of the legal consequences of not returning to the classroom, including the possibility of being fired.
Ms. Steele said she was concerned about the impact of the strike on the 16,000-student district, where enrollment is already down. The strike, he said, could cause more students to walk out. “I trust it [enrollment] it hasn't taken a big hit, but we don't know,” he said.
The district and the Gary Teachers Union announced that teachers will vote on a tentative agreement on Sept. 1 to end the strike.
Classes in the city's schools had been canceled since August 24. The strike began on August 21. two days later the school year started.
Money alternatives
Public employee strikes are illegal in 24 states. Twelve of those states, including Indiana and Michigan, have penalties for truancy ranging from fines to dismissal to prison terms, according to the Denver-based Education Commission of States.
Nine states still allow strikes by public employees, but lawmakers in at least one, Pennsylvania, have introduced bills to make them illegal. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Teachers Union, Wyatt Keever, said that of the 185 school districts whose contracts expired earlier this year, 120 had not reached an agreement before the start of the 2006-07 school year.
Union officials say the ability to strike is an important tool for teachers when districts seek to cut wages and benefits.
“Trying to take away the ability to hit is not what we would like to see,” said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association. “But even more important and more important is to complete the negotiations.”
He said districts could offer teachers better working conditions and incentives such as more relief time, professional development opportunities and course credit.
“If there's not enough money, there may be other things you can put on the table,” Mr Weaver said. To satisfy both the district and the teachers, he said, “people can come up with creative ideas.”
