Should Massachusetts legalize teachers’ strikes?
By 
WHEN EDUCATORS IN four Massachusetts school districts went on strike over the past year, walking out of the building meant walking into hot water with the state. Public employee strikes are illegal in Massachusetts, but they tend to be effective – teachers in Brookline, Malden, Haverhill, and Woburn walked back into their schools with new contracts.
The rising number of actual and threatened walkouts feels like a shift in the air to school administrators and lawmakers alike. But they differ sharply on whether the state should open the door to the trend or keep the current law firmly in place.
Strikes cause serious disruption to educators, families, and students, and leave a bitterness in school districts, Tom Scott, executive director of Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said on the Codcast. State Sen. Becca Rausch, a Needham Democrat who has filed a bill to legalize public employee strikes after six months of failed negotiations, said teacher strikes are an important collective bargaining tool that is increasingly supported by the public.
“The right to strike is one of the most foundational rights for workers that we have,” Rausch said. “The reason that there’s a six-month period built into the bill is because I think everybody agrees that a strike should be a measure of last resort.”
Several factors are driving the increase in local strikes, Rausch and Scott said. The pandemic brought mental health and school infrastructure concerns to the forefront. An increasingly turbulent economy of rising inflation, soaring housing costs, and crushing student loans debt are also impacting school staff.
Rausch and Scott clashed over the effectiveness of strikes as a negotiation tool, with Scott calling their impact “marginal” and Rausch countering that “strikes and votes to strike yield better results faster for teachers and students and communities at large.”
Scott argued that the walkouts poison the atmosphere in school districts.
“It all comes out to sort of a more heated moment in terms of how these decisions get made,” Scott said of teacher strikes. “I think they leave everybody feeling very uncomfortable, which does nothing to promote the culture of the school or the district, which I believe, and certainly from my conversation with superintendents, can have long-term damaging effects.”
Other avenues to collectively bargain are not always being pursued, Scott said. Teachers have other ways to protest, he said, by going to school committee meetings, town meetings, “to the front steps of their elected officials,” and make their objections public.
“There are tools that we have that are not being used,” he said. “My fear, and the fear I think for a lot of people, is that if you create the law that says they can go immediately to strike after six months without using the tools that exist there, what you’re doing is just disrupting a lot of lives, most importantly the lives of children.”
“I am a parent of elementary-aged kids. We had to figure out what to do, particularly in those early days of Covid when nobody knew what we were doing,” she said of the pandemic shutdown of schools. “Even knowing how hard that is, the parents and communities are still by significant majorities rallying around their teachers in support of their teachers.”
Recent polling from Northwind Strategies, which generally pursues more left-leaning policy questions, found 67 percent of respondents at least somewhat supported strikes when asked, “do you support or oppose allowing public school teachers to go on strike to fight for higher wages and improved working conditions?”
With Gov. Maura Healey opposed to the idea, and Senate President Karen Spilka also signaling wariness, legalizing teachers strikes may be a tougher sell on Beacon Hill.
JENNIFER SMITH
FROM COMMONWEALTH
New MBTA GM coming: Gov. Maura Healey is set to appoint the retired president of the Long Island Rail Road as the next general manager of the MBTA. Philip Eng retired just over a year ago from the nation’s largest commuter rail operation and has been working at the LiRo Group, which advises on transportation, infrastructure, and large building projects. Read more.
No way: House Speaker Ron Mariano tells Auditor Diana DiZoglio and her bid to audit the Legislature to go pound sand. Read more.
OPINION
Don’t do it: Jarred Johnson, the executive director of TransitMatters, urges Gov. Maura Healey to put on hold the search for a new MBTA general manager and focus on getting the transit authority into better financial shape. Read more.
Support undocumented students: Lane Glenn, the president of Northern Essex Community College, and Sen. Pavel Payano say Massachusetts needs to do more to support undocumented students, who are important to the state’s economic future. Read more.
Bullying prevention: Christa Kelleher of UMass Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy lays out five steps to address bullying. Read more.
Rental cap: Mimi Ramos of New England United for Justice and Mike Leyba of City Life/Vida Urbana want a 5 percent cap on rental increases. Read more.
FROM AROUND THE WEB
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Easthampton City Councilor David Meunier has missed half of the council meetings since taking office nine months ago. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
North Adams Mayor Jennifer Macksey says she will not be renewing the contract of the police chief, who has been on paid leave related to what is being called a “domestic incident.” (Berkshire Eagle)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
The state dispatches an emergency response team to the Springside Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center in Pittsfield after a COVID outbreak affecting more than 60 staff and residents. (Berkshire Eagle)
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
Massive protests over proposals to weaken the independence of Israel’s judiciary are continuing as the issue reaches a boil, with work stoppages bringing a halt to flights leaving the country’s main airport and to some non-emergency medical services. (New York Times)
ELECTIONS
Sen. Elizabeth Warren makes it official: She’s running for reelection next year (Boston Globe)
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
First Citizens Bank of North Carolina acquires Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed earlier this month. (Associated Press)
EDUCATION
Connecticut College’s president says she will resign following a student protest over her plan to make a fundraising trip to a club in Florida with a racist past. (Connecticut Public Radio)
The push to end affirmative action in college admissions is fueling a parallel effort to end “legacy” admission practices that give a leg up to the children of graduates of a college or university. (Boston Globe)
Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Rachel Monárrez says the district is struggling with old and overstuffed buildings as she pushes for a more modernized school building policy at the state level. (MassLive)
TRANSPORTATION
The MBTA ferry between East Boston and downtown resumes today. (WBUR)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
Milford will comply with state policing standards after approving a new use of force policy, which includes post-incident reporting and officer wellness considerations. (MetroWest Daily News)
MEDIA
Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby rises in defense of former Globe and Washington Post editor Marty Baron’s defense of objectivity in journalism. CommonWealth’s Bruce Mohl wrote last week about Baron’s recent speech at Brandeis University laying out his stance, a position that Baron said leaves him in a “diminishing minority.”