Seattle parents brace for teachers' strike

Today in The Seattle Times, the Seattle school district notified families to prepare for a possible strike by teachers on the first day of school, September 4, next week.  

Threatening a teachers’ strike right before the start of school is a common union tactic, a relic from the Industrial Age, long ago, from the 1800’s.  Teachers’ strikes accomplish two goals for union executives:  1) strikes show the union can slam shut schoolhouse doors; and 2) strikes give the union leverage to extract concessions in contract talks with school districts, forcing many districts to draw on reserves or seek new taxes to fund financially unsustainable wage and benefits packages. 

Parents in the South Kitsap School District are also bracing for a teachers strike.  The teachers’ union in the Snoqualmie Valley School District has just rejected the district’s contract offer, and children may also find their schools shut down by the union. 

These strikes are becoming depressingly predictable.  Last fall, the union targeted children in Tacoma, closing schools for two weeks before a judge ordered them to reopen. Earlier, union executives closed schools in the Kent, Bellevue and Marysville, and have threatened strikes in many other districts. 

Teacher strikes are illegal. State law says public employees may not strike against the public. RCW 41.56.120 states: "Nothing contained in this chapter shall permit or grant any public employee the right to strike or refuse to perform his official duties." 

An Attorney General’s opinion explains: "In Washington, state and local public employees do not have a legally protected right to strike.  No such right existed at common law, and none has been granted by statute.” http://www.atg.wa.gov/AGOOpinions/Opinion.aspx?section=archive&id=5736 

The union's business model is funded by forced deductions of dues from teachers’ paychecks, backed by fear and threats of job loss.  Teachers who refuse to join the union will lose their jobs.  Forcing teachers to pay dues in this way sustains the union, inevitably leading to these destructive strikes every fall.  No other independent membership organization, such as AARP, the American Medical Association, the American Bar Association, or the Sierra Club, uses the government to force its members to pay dues or be fired. 

There is no reason children should fear the loss or delay of their education because of fights started by adults.  Washington’s taxpayers have just added $1.56 billion to the current $13.6 billion in school spending. Districts are already giving teachers broad pay and benefit increases. Any other issues of concern to teachers could be resolved without having to take the extreme measure of calling a strike and keeping children out of the classroom. 

Strikes are a relic of the past, a legacy of violence and coercion from our country's history.  Strikes employ brute force to assert the will of powerful union executives. Strikes have no place in our modern society, and least of all in our schools.