Montgomery Newspapers: Law would end teachers’ strikes
Pennsylvania teachers will no longer be able to go on strike if new legislation passes. The bill would prohibit public school teacher strikes and extend the arbitration process.
“The process we have right now allows for teacher strikes at the end of a bargaining process … which puts kids on the street,” said Rep. David Steil, R-31, who sponsored the bill. The bill was in response to the 21-day strike in the Pennsbury School District last fall. Parents were very upset, Steil said, and many signed up to be actively involved in working to ban school strikes.
Parents formed a group called Keep Students First and created the bill with the goal of eliminating school strikes. Steil introduced it in the General Assembly.
The bill would prohibit school employees from going on strike, in favor of an extended arbitration process that could end with binding arbitration. In arbitration, a third party attempts to resolve disputes between the school board and the teachers’ union. In binding arbitration the decision is official, while in the current nonbinding arbitration, either side can reject the ruling.
Both the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which represents the interests of teachers’ unions, oppose the bill. Both are against binding arbitration and banning teacher strikes.
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