[R]ep. Kurt Wright, R-Burlington, is hopeful that this could be the year his bill to ban teacher strikes gains traction.
Wright has long advocated that teachers should not be allowed to strike and that school boards should not be allowed to impose contracts when negotiations break down. In the wake of recent teacher strikes in South Burlington and Colchester, Wright believes the time for H.76 may have arrived.
“The genesis of the bill is simply that I am a strong believer that teacher strikes are really bad for kids,” Wright said Wednesday.
Strikes are likewise unhealthy for communities and families, he said.
“It is really divisive, and it rips communities apart. We want kids to stay in the classroom learning,” said Wright, who sits on the House Education Committee.
The bill as proposed by Wright “takes away from both sides,” so while it prohibits striking by teachers, it also prohibits school boards from being able to impose contracts. Instead, if there is a contract impasse, the teachers’ labor contract negotiations move to arbitration.
“It takes away a school board’s right to impose a contract or finality on the teachers,” Wright said. “It takes away the right to strike (for teachers) but it takes away the school board’s right to impose a contract and replaces it with binding arbitration if (the parties hit) an impasse that can’t be resolved.”
If that point of impasse comes, instead of moving to what he calls “the nuclear option” — a teacher strike — the parties are forced into arbitration by law.
“The union says they don’t oppose the bill, but they are fine with the system the way it is,” Wright said of the Vermont NEA. “Any community that has had a strike is not fine with it the way it is.”
He said only 13 states allow strikes for teachers.
“I think it’s time that we look at that because I think that strikes aren’t the right thing for the students of today,” said Rep. Bernie Juskiewicz, R-Cambridge, who co-signed the bill. “We should be able to settle it without putting them through that turmoil. I can remember in Hyde Park they had a strike maybe 10 or 15 years ago, and there are still hard feelings in town about that. It’s not something that just goes away. I think we have to find a better way.”
Also signing the bill was Rep. Kevin “Coach” Christie, D-Hartford, ranking member of the House Education Committee, said keeping teachers in school is a good idea.
“So, if we had the opportunity to negotiate a reasonable conclusion to whatever the stalemate is, then that’s where we should go, and this kind of forces that hand,” he said. “Because he’s looking at going to binding arbitration instead of strike, it forces everybody to really do the hard work to come up with a decision and I think that’s what our goal is and should be.”
Asked on Wednesday if he would sign such a bill, Gov. Peter Shumlin said, “Assuming that it’s a balanced bill, yes.”
“Obviously the details matter, but I actually outlined it in my budget address, it was one of my major recommendations to help us get school spending in order,” Shumlin said.
Darren Allen, communications director for the Vermont National Education Association, said the unions supports the concept.
“Vermont-NEA has said since the late 1990s that teachers will forego the right to strike only if school boards lose their right to impose working conditions. If negotiations do not result in an agreement, then the dispute will be settled by a neutral arbitrator, chosen locally by the school board and the local union, whose decision will be final.”
“It is worth repeating, however, that strikes and impositions remain exceedingly rare, and that negotiated settlements have been reached more than 5,000 times since teachers gained collective bargaining rights four decades ago,” Allen said. “In other words, the system works almost all of the time; indeed, teachers have struck about two dozen times and boards have imposed working conditions about 20 times in the last 40 years.”
VTDigger staff writer Morgan True contributed to this report.
