Teachers in West Virginia struck across the state, demanding a 5% pay raise. Today, the strike was settled, and teachers won the 5% they sought.
“West Virginia lawmakers unanimously approved 5 percent pay raises for teachers and troopers on Tuesday after the governor reached a deal to end a teacher walkout that shuttered the state’s schools for nine days.
“A huge group of teachers crowding the Capitol’s hallways cheered their victory.
“With striking teachers looking on, the House of Delegates passed the pay raise for teachers, school service personnel and state troopers on a 99-0 vote, and the Senate followed, voting 34-0.
“I believe in you and I love our kids,” Gov. Jim Justice said.”
Unfortunately, the legislators plan to pay for the raise by cutting the budget, including Medicaid, instead of raising taxes on corporations that just got a big refund on their taxes from the GOP Tax bill last December.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A mixed bag and not really a win-win situation.
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They organized, totally grassroots, and they won their key demand. Now they should vote the scoundrels out.
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Just saw this, what happened to the key demand over health care?? Not good that all this solidarity failed to take a big step forward.
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Argh! You missed the point! The primary reason for the strike was the health insurance mess. What good is a pay raise if they just raise the fraction of the insurance paid by the teachers, which is what has been going on for the past 20 years. Every raise they get gets funneled back into health insurance costs.
Too much attention is being paid to the raises and too little to the lack of reform on the health insurance front.
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This current year I got a $1300/year raise matched up with a (25%) $4800 medical premium increase.
Net Result: -$400 a month take home pay.
I feel so special.
Since 2002 when the State of Texas began offering a statewide health plan, their contribution to that plan has not changed one cent. The teachers have been forced to absorb every rate increase. For the last 3 years, I have taken a pay cut due to the yearly rate increase.
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Yes.
As Mr. Zorba has maintained, the benefits are part of your salary. If there were no benefits, no health insurance partly paid by the employers, no pensions partly paid by the employers, no 401-K plans with the employer kicking in some money, then the employers would need to be increasing the salaries.
Not that all of them would, but then they would lose their best employees.
And if we had universal health care in this country, the way almost all first world (and a lot of second world) countries have, this wouldn’t even be on the table for employees.
West Virginia teachers, good on you, but if you can, look for jobs in Maryland and Virginia.
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Still glad they did it. More striking to come…
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A 5% raise is one half of diddly squat, and healthcare not being addressed makes it less than diddly. Still glad they did it. They are heroes.
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The fact that all public workers were awarded 5% is a big positive – solidarity is going to be ever more important moving forward.
The fact that they agreed to the raise without resolving PEIA / health insurance costs, however, which was also a key demand, is a matter of concern. In a state where 29% of all residents are on Medicaid, cutting funding for this is a (very) short-term fix.
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No single strike will fix everything. They stuck and got 5%. Maybe games will be played. A good teacher is always ready to walk out. These people hardly make any money and just went withought an entire pay check. They proved we can strike and have success. Time for the next union to push a little further.
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Can’t agree. Leaving the health care crisis on the table is a big mistake. It is VERY hard to get all teachers in a whole state on the same page at the same time to do the same thing. The huge walkout represents the most important power teachers or any workers can exert. It will be much harder to get everyone out again once the meager pay raise kicks in and things go back to routine. When you walk out en masse with the whole unit at your back, you stay out until the other side cries uncle after all these years of making the rank and file cry year after year.
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You are right, the “other side” won, as usual.
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Mixed reaction 4 me. I hope the teachers organize and vote those suckers out of office.
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It’s a mixed bag, but the strike as a sign of solidarity was impressive. Now if they could only get rid of the GOP legislators and regain their collective bargaining rights.
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The media has done a very poor job of explaining this – if they’ve bothered to write about it in the first place. The problems are as discussed above – health care benefits, pensions, etc. Now they’re going to cut Medicare and I guarantee you the “greedy” teachers will be blamed.
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