Teacher strikes are illegal in Washington State. The high-publicity walkouts scheduled by several school districts across the state – allegedly to protest the state House and Senate budget proposals, but in reality a power play orchestrated by the Washington Education Association (WEA) to try to fill its political coffers with more compelled-dues dollars – are not allowed under state law. The same law applies to all public employees at the state and local level.
The problem is, while the strikes are illegal, there is no way to enforce the law. Former state Attorney General Rob McKenna explained in a recent piece,
“The reason doesn’t matter. They’re not legal as a protest. They’re not legal for collective bargaining purposes. They’re not legal under any circumstances.
“Of course, there’s a little hiccup here. While strikes are illegal under state law, the law does not specify any penalties. Judges can impose penalties, but that only occurs after an injunction is sought and issued to require the employees to return to work, and then the employees defy that injunction.
“Which means the unions know that they can get away with a one-day strike, with no price to pay. And they want it to be as disruptive as possible. As Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center pointed out in 2011, it is an intentional union strategy to hold these strikes mid-week, when they will inconvenience parents and the community the most.
“Breaking a law with no penalties is still breaking the law. That’s not the example our public school teachers should set.”
Unfortunately, that’s exactly the type of example local union activists are choosing to set. Union leaders attempt to justify their illegal actions by falsely informing members that the strikes are permitted by union contracts. Lake Washington Education Association (LWEA) sent an email to its members claiming that the union has “language in our contract that permits us to participate in a statewide action against the Legislature.”
Other union representatives have been a bit more truthful about what they are doing—openly admitting they just don’t care that the strikes are illegal. The Freedom Foundation points out that, on April 19, Rich Dustin, a member of the Public School Employees (SEIU Local 1948) Legislative Council, tweeted:
It’s up to school boards to take legal action against unions, according to the Freedom Foundation. Though, as McKenna pointed out, the length of time involved in to pursue legal action makes stopping the hastily scheduled teacher walkouts impossible.
Yesterday, the Sedro-Woolley School Board passed a resolution declaring “strikes of any length by any employees are illegal and do ‘irreparable harm’ to students.” Unfortunately, the resolution won’t stop the planned walkout. The Sedro-Woolley teachers union will move forward, along with 11 school districts, with its strike scheduled for tomorrow.
On Saturday, Jay Inslee and Democrat House Speaker Frank Chopp both participated in a teachers’ rally organized by the WEA – a union that contributed $1 million to elect Inslee in 2012 – at the Capitol in Olympia. Among other demands, the rally insisted on funding for the WEA’s Initiative 1351—a demand that neither Inslee nor Chopp’s state House met in their budget proposals. But, that didn’t stop them from taking advantage of the opportunity to score political points.
Inslee used the opportunity to lament the state of education funding in Washington—a problem caused by a having a Democrat governor sign every state budget for the last 30 years, of course. Meanwhile, Chopp insisted that he would do everything in his power to prevent the use of student test scores as a part of teacher evaluations—his success would, ironically, continue costing local school districts control of $40 million in federal funding. Both refrained from calling the planned walkouts for what they are, illegal strikes.
Teachers unions—and their Democrat supporters—have added insult to injury by claiming the planned strikes are for the sake of children. No matter what union leaders may say to excuse their behavior, school districts, parents and students should take the scheduled strikes personally. The illegal strikes negatively impact school districts, they place undue strain on working families and they, effectively, punish students—an unjustifiable punishment meant to benefit unions, not children.
Further, the teachers unions is simply lying to the public – and its own members – about the lack of education funding being proposed by both houses of the legislature. The Republican-controlled state Senate proposed a budget that any reasonable observer would qualify as a budget that truly prioritizes education. Nearly half of the budget is designated to education spending. Here’s what the state Senate budget does for K-12 education:
- $2.7 billion biennial spending increase, a jump from $15.3 billion to $18 billion
- $1.3 billion to meet constitutional requirements as ordered in the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision. That includes:
- $740 million more for materials, supplies and operating costs
- $350 million to reduce K-3 class sizes
- $190 million for all day kindergarten
- $230 million for K-12 teachers’ and other employees’ salary increases
- $210 million to pay for higher state pension costs, primarily due to longer employee life spans
- $1.3 billion to meet constitutional requirements as ordered in the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision. That includes:
The Senate’s budget features a whopping 17.8% increase in state appropriations for education. Comparatively, non-education portions of the budget would grow by less than 6%. That’s the largest K-12 biennial percentage growth in 25 years. To put it in perspective, K-12 education comprises over 47% of the state Senate’s budget—the highest portion of the budget in over 30 years.
That’s the kind of education funding that teachers unions have decided is worthy of breaking the law to protest.
So, we have a law in WA where it’s illegal for public employees to strike and yet we have the top dog in Olympia (Governor “Obama White” Inslee) taking part, essentially flipping off the law of the land. That’s just great. WTG Inslee. You’re looking more and more like Obama day after day.
What is being carefully avoided here is the fact that there are two collective bargaining laws in Washington state that govern strikes. One is the Public Employees Bargaining Act and the other is the Educational Employees Bargaining Act. The former prohibits strikes. The later is silent on the issue of strikes. So, the law that governs Educational Employees neither permits nor prohibits strikes. If negotiated contracts between education associations and districts prohibit strikes during the life of the contract, that makes the issue pretty clear. If not, the issue becomes more cloudy. If this is not perceived by the court as a collective bargaining situation, the law is even less clear. But, to say strikes are illegal lacks credibility. As for unjustifiable, that’s a matter of opinion.
The evergreen state in all its glory.