Written by: Sarah Johnson | January 29, 2019

By: Sarah Johnson

Teacher strikes were a huge part of the news coverage in 2018, and it appears that 2019 is no different! We have already seen a huge strike in Los Angeles, which appears to have yielded results, Denver a strike planned for the last week in January, Oakland is voting on a strike soon, and teachers in Chicago have prepared to walk out of five area charter schools in early February. Along with strikes comes legislation; whether the bills address what the teachers are asking for directly or address the protests in general, we have a lot of bills to look through to understand this evolving situation.

Background on the 2018 Teacher’s Strikes and Legislation

In 2018, we saw four impactful strikes in West Virginia, Arizona, Kentucky and Oklahoma. These strikes and others (mostly in Republican-controlled states) have lead to a movement dubbed #RedForEd.

West Virginia

In February of 2018, all 55 counties in West Virginia participated in a strike, keeping around 277,000 students out of class for almost three weeks because of low pay and high healthcare costs for teachers and school personnel in the state. WV HB4145 passed last year that increased the annual salaries of members of the West Virginia State Police, public school teachers and school service personnel – addressing what the West Virginia teachers asked for during their strike. The governor and union leaders agreed that teachers and service personnel would receive a 5% pay raise, and the House approved the proposal. Republicans in the Senate passed that bill with a 4% raise which the house then rejected. Ultimately they did agree on the 5% raise.

Arizona

Arizona teachers held a strike the last week of April in 2018 where 20,000 teachers participated to protest low pay and cuts to school funding. The strike ended on May 3, when the legislature conceded to increase funding for support staff salaries and to decrease student to counselor ratios. The measure will give teachers a 20% raise by 2020 and provide an additional $371 to education funding over the next five years, restoring in part the funding cut during the recession. The legislation did not include provisions for pay increases for other support staff such as librarians and counselors, nor does the funding reach the requested $1 billion.

Kentucky

Although Kentucky’s teachers seem to be competitively paid in comparison to teachers from all over the country, their pension system is in trouble. Like many pensions around the country, unfunded obligations have swelled in recent years and lawmakers are struggling to address them. Governor, Matt Bevin, stated, “If we don’t change anything, the system will fail, and most of the people now teaching will never see one cent of a retirement plan.”

In 2018, Republicans fast-tracked a dramatic “reimagining” of Kentucky’s pension system by attaching it to a sewage bill. What it did was implement something called a “cash-balance” plan for new teachers. Cash-balance plans, defined as double-benefit plans, are when an employer credits a participant’s account with a set percentage of his or her yearly compensation plus interest charges. They exist somewhere between a 401k and a traditional pension plan. The way they are setup introduces a new level of uncertainty because teachers will not know how much money they will receive as their monthly pension until the retire. Forty percent of all teachers do not have access to Social Security in fifteen states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas.

Beau Barnes, general counsel for Kentucky’s Teachers’ Retirement System, spoke about the plan stating “The biggest difference is, with the existing plan, you know exactly what your retirement is going to be before you retire.”

When teachers realized that this cash-balance plan was getting pushed through, they started a strike to protest the pension changes. Although these changes are here to stay, Republicans did override the governor’s veto of a new, two-year operating budget that increases per-student spending.

“You can stand here all day and act like you are all for (education) until it comes time to pay for it. Well, that’s a coward,” said Republican Rep. Regina Huff, a middle school special education teacher. “We have to have this revenue to fund our schools.”

Oklahoma

Oklahoma, like many of these states, staged a walkout in hopes of increasing school funding and higher pay for support staff. This strike, however, happened after their state lawmakers had passed (OK HB1114 ) a $6,000 pay raise for educators (in late March), although lawmakers have not figured out how to pay for it, about $53 million a year. The bill by Republican Rep. Michael Rogers of Broken Arrow calls for a $1,000 raise next year, $2,000 the following year and $3,000 in the third year. Oklahoma’s average teacher salary of $44,921 is last in a seven-state region that includes Oklahoma and hasn’t been raised since 2008. Teachers decided to go back to the classroom after nine days with no new concessions. Although this move was supported by their union leaders, it upset and disappointment many. Larry Cagle, a leader of Oklahoma Teachers United, said, “In reality, we are truly, literally in a worse position than when we started. The unions were horribly complicit in this meltdown.”

A Look at the Current Bills Relating to Teachers’ Strikes

Arizona

Arizona is back in the news this year with two bills critics say might be retribution for last year’s actions. The two House bills (HB-2002 and HB-2015) introduced for the 2019 legislative term would severely limit teachers’ political speech. HB-2002, would require the the state to create a code of ethics to prevent political speech, and ban teachers from any perceived attempt to “endorse, support or oppose any pending, proposed or enacted legislation, rule or regulation regardless of whether that legislation, rule or regulation is pending.” The bill would allow for cause of termination if teachers talk politics in the classroom. HB-2015 prohibits the use of school district or charter school resources or employees to influence elections or espouse personal beliefs. The bill states “A person acting on behalf of a school district or a person who aids another person acting on behalf of a school district may not use school time to espouse a political ideology or religious belief, unless it is germane to the subject matter of the class or activity.”

California

Already, teachers at a half-dozen schools in nearby Oakland, California, staged an unauthorized walkout as well, with formal plans in Oakland developing.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma has also proposed two bills that seem to be retaliatory from the teachers’ strike last year, SB 592 and HB2214. SB 592, introduced by Senator Mark Allen, would severely limit the ability of teachers to be able to protest. SB 592, as it is written currently, would require any group of 100 people or more to post a $50,000 bond to protest outside of the State Capitol building. The bill states that the $50,000 bond would go toward the Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority, to “offset the cost of additional security, cleanup and repairs.” After the bill was brought to the floor, Allen stated that “language was misinterpreted downstairs, and we got to a filing deadline so it was filed like that. It’s not going to be like that.  I would never run an unconstitutional bill, and I’m not going to start now.” The bill is set to be amended to remove the specific bond requirement. In its place, the bill would require groups who protest to reimburse the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) for any repairs in the event of any damage to capitol property.

HB 2214, by proposed by Representative Todd Russ, it would make it illegal for someone on the board of education or employee from a school district to be paid if they walked out of class for any reason. The bill states, “It shall be illegal for the board of education or school district employees to strike or threaten to strike or otherwise close schools or interfere with school operations as a means of resolving differences with the board of education, the State Department of Education, the State Board of Education, the Legislature or any other public official or public body. Any person engaging in a strike, shutdown or related activities shall be denied the full amount of his or her wages during the period of such violation.” The bill goes on to say that any person participating in the strike who also has a teaching certificate would have it permanently revoked.

Virginia

Finally, we get to Virginia’s HB 1764. This bill, in contrast to those proposed in Arizona and Oklahoma, could facilitate future teacher strikes. The bill would

Repeal the provisions of the Code of Virginia that, among other things, provide that any employee of the Commonwealth, a locality, or other political subdivision who strikes or willfully refuses to perform the duties of his employment is deemed to have terminated his employment and is thereafter ineligible for employment.

The legislation was proposed by Democratic state delegate Lee Carter of Manassas, who says it’s an effort to allow teachers to “fight back” against poor school conditions.

“We saw [teacher strikes] in West Virginia, in Kentucky and Arizona,” said Carter in an interview. “What it showed us is that teachers are the last line of defense when a state government decides to neglect education. When things get bad enough where teachers feel they have to use that last resort of a strike, I don’t want to penalize them for doing that.”

Virginia was not among the states that saw teacher walkouts in 2018.

Conclusion

Teacher strikes are incredibly disruptive and last year’s parade of actions were a shock to the system. With this year already shaping up to see at least as much activity there will be lots of new legislation to keep up with.

Cover Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

 

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