Runaway Teachers Strike a Glimpse of the Future (and Past)

Many conservative Americans don’t like collective bargaining. This term refers to a legal process in which a union is designated the sole bargaining agent for employees. The union negotiates a labor agreement with an employer. The union can strike; the employer can lock out workers; but usually they make mutual concessions and have an agreement. Once that contract is in place, there can be no strikes or lockouts. A court can issue an injunction—and jail people for noncompliance—if “labor peace” is broken.

West Virginia is the kind of state that many conservatives favor—a red state that outlaws public sector collective bargaining. Teachers can join a union—but their union cannot bargain. It can only press lawmakers for better pay and conditions.

This system has produced no pay raises for teachers since 2014. During this time, teachers have found a bigger part of their paycheck going to health insurance. Take home pay has reached crisis proportions for many teachers.

Now for the “glimpse of the future (and past)”: After a week of striking, the state has agreed to raise pay 5%-- but has not made concessions on health insurance. The teachers union is urging teachers to return to work. The union must think this is the best deal that can be had. But teachers are having none of it. They are rejecting calls from the governor and from their union to stop the strike.

Collective bargaining was enacted in 1935 after the nation experienced 2,000-2,500 strikes every year in the early 1930s. There was no mechanism, short of jailing striking workers or hiring replacements to cross furious picket lines, to create labor peace.

West Virginia teachers aren’t Socialists; nor are they the type of people who like to cause disruption. They are ordinary people who have been pushed to their breaking point. Now that their anger has boiled over, there is no legal process (i.e., collective bargaining) to bring them back to work.