Politico Morning Education reports:
BANNING TEACHER STRIKES?: West Virginia’s GOP-led Senate approved the ban on teacher strikes 17-14 as an amendment to broad education reform legislation that DeVos urged the lawmakers to pass. The amendment was approved with “heavy opposition” from Democrats, the Associated Press reported.
— GOP Sen. Charles Trump, who sponsored the amendment, said it’s meant to keep schools running and not as retaliation for two teacher walkouts since last year, according to the AP. But Fred Albert, the president of the state’s American Federation of Teachers chapter, told POLITICO Pro “it’s pure retribution, retaliation.”
—”Already, we don’t have collective bargaining. It’s a right-to-work state,” Albert said, acknowledging that work stoppages in the past have been “truly illegal.” “This is just I think another stab at trying to punish us, making the law perhaps a little more severe with such language,” but he said such measures aren’t likely to float in the House.
— The chamber will continue its work today on education legislation, which would allow for the creation of state charter school and education savings account programs that are opposed by teachers unions who have been protesting at the state Capitol. The GOP-led House will reconvene on June 17.
— In February, the unions waged a two-day strike over a contentious education bill that would have brought education savings accounts and charter schools to West Virginia. The state started the wave of teacher strikes in 2018, helping create a #RedforEd teacher strike movement that continues today.
— DeVos’s push for school choice runs directly counter to what the state’s teachers unions want. She tweeted on Friday, “West Virginia has an opportunity to improve education for all & put the needs of students first. Looking forward to seeing bold moves to offer robust options like charter schools & ESAs and support great teachers. Let’s get it done.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why am I not surprised.
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Ha ha ha! Banning strikes is like banning boycotts. Good luck with that! We have the numbers. The labor movement strives when there is safety in numbers, and numbers exist when oppression is strong. Good luck with trying to fire everyone at once! Solidarity defeats unjust laws every time.
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In 1981, President Reagan fired all of the air traffic controllers who participated in an illegal strike. The union was crushed. Public employees do NOT have the right to strike.
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I support unions and collective bargaining. Workers must have the power to bargain for better wages, hours, and working conditions. That strengthens the middle class and creates goof jobs and a good economy. It gets rid of sweatshops and coal mines that are death traps. It seems, Charles, that you want toturnthexlock back to the late 19th Century. Not me.
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I also support unions. My wife used to belong to the Machinist’s Union. She supports unions as well. Collective bargaining is responsible for improving wages, eliminating child labor, improved working conditions, etc. I have absolutely no quarrel with labor unions.
BUT- When it comes to public employees, that is an entirely different matter. (I have 12 years of federal service). Even the ultra-liberal pro-union Franklin D. Roosevelt was horrified at the concept of public employees striking.
Public employees, including teachers, must forfeit any possibility of striking, even on pain of termination.
I do not wish to turn back any clocks. The gains won by collective bargaining are here to stay.
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No, Charles, you don’t support unions. Most private sector unions have been eliminated. The small number of remaining unions are mostly public sector, and you don’t think they should have the right to strike.
I disagree. Teachers are public sector workers. They should have the right to strike, or they will be crushed.
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perhaps the very fact that the legislators are so ready to INSULT teachers with this type of agenda will encourage an even more massive resistance
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“The more you tighten your grip, the more… will slip through your fingers.”
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I wish I could agree. The Union movement has demonstrated time after time that it can not maintain the solidarity to win against a recalcitrant employer. Eventually they will. What type of a black swan moment that will take, I don’t know. The two events that really sparked growth in organized labor were Triangle Shirt Waist and the NLRA brought on by the Great Depression sparked to periods of outrage and growth.
These Republican legislators are doing this in what 2 decades ago was a solid Union solid Blue State. They do so because they think they will get away with it.
When this State went Right to Work in 17 where was the revolution. There was an election in 16 that brought them to power and then one in 18 after they went Right to Work and forced Teachers out on strike . Did they pay a cost this past November. If they didn’t why not go forward with this.
I love some of those teachers last year who said I am a republican as they marched Red for Ed. And I believe I pointed out the absurdity of that position.
That is not an excuse for corporatist Democrats but gee how ——– stupid can you be.
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correction: They sparked two periods of outrage and growth.
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Joe Biden Supports Privately-Operated Charter Schools | Dissident Voicehttps://dissidentvoice.org/2019/06/joe-biden-supports-privately-operated-charter-schools/
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Another national ed reform initiative that completely ignores public school students and families.
A laser-like focus on 1. union busting and 2. funding private schools. Public school students and families are their dead-last priority. No one works for them.
Remember when we hired all these people and they said they would “improve” public education? Twenty years later public school students still haven’t seen any return on our investment in their salaries.
You could replace all of them with a competent bookkeeper who just issues public funding to private contractors. Take what you save and invest in the unfashionable public sector schools.
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“West Virginia has an opportunity to improve education for all & put the needs of students first. Looking forward to seeing bold moves to offer robust options like charter schools & ESAs and support great teachers. Let’s get it done.”
Well, except PUBLIC school students. They got absolutely nothing out of this backroom deal.
A huge national push to promote vouchers, thousands of paid ed reform lobbyists flooding statehouses and DC, and the net gain for any public school student or family in the country? Zero.
They simply do not work on behalf of children who attend public schools. They offer them nothing. They return no value to 90% of the students in the country and we’re paying tens of thousands of them in all 50 states and in the federal government.
DeVos is promoting the Florida vouchers too. You have to read all the way to the bottom to get to the part about public school students in that state. You know what they got out of the voucher deal? 248 dollars a year in additional funding.
They’re funding these vouchers by cutting funding to students in existing public schools. Public school students get screwed in every one of these deals. They’re an afterthought.
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Now that they’ve spent the last 6 months promoting and funding vouchers, maybe one or two of these public employees could see their way clear to putting an actual work day in on doing something that benefits students in public schools.
They’re breaking for the summer having accomplished absolutely nothing for 90% of students in 2019. Maybe when they return to work in September we could tear them away from the private schools they prefer and see if they’re willing to perform any actual work in this calendar year for the remaining 97% of students in the state.
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“GOP Sen. Charles Trump, who sponsored the amendment, said it’s meant to keep schools running”
Why do they care if public schools are running? None of them support public schools, attend public schools, or bother with public schools at all. I’m surprised they even noticed.
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Boy, this has been a banner year for ed reform. They have been lavishing funding on private schools. Hundreds of millions of dollars in new private school funding if you count up all the states.
Can anyone point to anything they’ve done for PUBLIC school students in 2019? Anyone? They have to accomplished something in any one of the 50 states, right? I’m drawing a blank.
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I support legislation forbidding strikes by any public sector employee.
“A strike of public employees … looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
“There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time. ”
Calvin Coolidge.
Public employees forfeit any right to strike, when they are employed by the public.
Presidents from all across the political spectrum, from conservative republicans, to the most liberal, have consistently opposed any strike by public employees.
In 1981, President Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers. I hope West Virginia, passes legislation that will automatically terminate any public employee who participates in a strike.
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