CDSC Teachers Strike

Teachers Strike...Everyone Loses

By David Banyas with Brian Philips

“How dare you make my child stay out of school! Is this how it’s going to be around here now? Where am I supposed to take my first-grader? I work in the day! Why the hell aren’t you grown-ups acting grown up? Figure this out or else I’m moving out of the neighborhood!”

The Central Dauphin School District’s first-ever teachers’ strike was more like a pipe bomb than the occasional disagreement between teachers and their administration. The casualties were those on the tangents of the walkout who felt the shrapnel as much as those at ground zero. Students were forced into a three-week hiatus. Their parents were handed a 21-day long monkey wrench. County officials saw on the horizon a $400,000 loss of state reimbursement if the school year dropped below 180 days. Seniors worried about how and if they would graduate on time. But the teachers and school administration warred on, each feeling as completely right as much as the other was completely wrong. The conflict was ended only by legal intervention. Mouths are still coated with the gritty taste of the dust that is settling. In what condition does the integrity and dependability of a once-great school district lay?

“It’s a mess,” said CD parent and former teacher Pat Doyle. “I was in a strike twenty years ago in the Harrisburg district and the repercussions lasted two, three years afterward.” And he may be predicting the future of CD. “The strike is not over, they just went back to school.”

Under the wary eyes of every administrator, teacher, parent and citizen in the district, school is in. The teachers’ strike, which was ended under the gavel of Hon. Lawrence Clark at a hasty court hearing on February 21, has shed light on a jumbled mess of what amounts to be a rotten corsage of playground politics. Essentially, the reasons that the strike occurred are these: The contract for CD teachers expired July 30, 2000. It was not renewed. The board instead offered a new contract that, among other changes, would not allow teachers to choose their health care, imposing a co-pay. It would also do away with the teachers’ “professional days,” which let the teacher visit professional arenas in their area of expertise to improve themselves as educators. In the view of the teacher’s union, this was an unacceptable resolution. Teachers worked the rest of 2000 without a contract.

Talks between teachers and administration, who had never experienced a total lack of executive harmony in the district, broke down. Striking began.

Doyle offers two simple reasons for the strike. “Number one: they’re pinching pennies for the building of this third high school project, which isn’t needed anyway. Number two: Teachers and parents — well, some parents don’t feel this way — don’t like the Superintendent, [Barbara] Hasson.” Teachers in the district have been wearing purple ribbons and apple pins since Hasson’s contract renewal last year (voted in 5 to 4) symbolizing their unity against her authority. “She hasn’t backed teachers in curriculum choice,” says Doyle. “And has made appointments that are, at best, questionable.” No matter what the reason, a strike, a teachers’ strike especially, is still just as damaging to a community.

When one thinks of a strike, there is an image of the two sides who are unable to agree being represented by a few spokespeople with ties loosened and sleeves rolled, sequestered away in a boardroom where they are poring over issues, emptying the coffee pot every hour, ordering out for Chinese and pizza, compromising a little on the part of each to meet in the middle somewhere, pounding an occasional fist for emphasis, and dealing tirelessly until they come out shaking hands. Well, in this strike, while the representation was there, talking across the table was not. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything except litigation.

The teachers’ union sued the district, Hasson, and the School Board to stop them from imposing the contract. Board lawyers slung threats, saying that they reserved the right to implement the contract if the union went on strike. Union lawyers said, “That sounds like you are forcing us to accept something we don’t want” and lobbed back the “Lock Out” catch phrase.

These first-time strikers may have supposed that in a walkout, there is a requirement to be mulish, loath to negotiate, and morally offended at the other party. “I don’t think it has anything to do with it being the first strike,” said long-time contract negotiator and first-time strike co-negotiator for the teachers’ union, Lilia Schneider, who also teaches elementary school. “I wanted to have talks every day, too. But whenever we’d meet with administration, there wasn’t ever a board member present.” Therefore, the administration, citing the absence of the board, continuously repeated that they were powerless to approve any deals. So, talks across the table stopped. And like the tabloid and rumor-ridden culture of high school, the only exchanges were in the format of boorish back-and-forth, “he said, she said” banter. The outsticking of tongues would have been no surprise in this air.

School board president Dale Merchant said that since the goal of the board was to always keep the two sides talking, the board voted in an interim contract on February 5 aimed at resuming dialogue. The union, wanting the old contract renewed, still felt that they were being slighted, but agreed to meet.

Another sit-down was set on February 12 and 13. For two full days the channel of communication was open. Still, progress was fully avoided. The next meeting was set inside a courtroom.

The ineffectual decisions made by the administration, led by Hasson; the alleged needs of the teacher’s union for what they deem a “livable” salary; and the personality conflicts between these two factions that even now chill the climate of CD schools were brought to light under the scales of justice. The prosecution showed graphs of deals reneged on and the gaping differences in pay from the past contract. Threats by the union to stay home after the strike ended if the old contract was not renewed were called “illegal striking” by the defense and an “illegal lockout” by the prosecution. As Judge Clark (and every other sentient being) found: “This is about money.” And as the infamous root of all evil, money and the unhealthy desire for it proved to be an omen for the breakdown of the educational infrastructure of the neighboring Harrisburg area schools. How much is enough?

In 1999, Pennsylvania ranked fourth in the U.S. in regards to public school teacher salaries (Nat’l Education Assoc.). The average teacher salary of $48,457 placed Pennsylvania $8,000 above the national average and $3,100 shy of first place ranking. In fact, since placing seventh in the rankings — and still above the average — in 1994, the state has steadily been rising up the list. How bad can it be? What does the public school teacher in CDSD make? “It’s about $42,000,” said Schneider. She bases that number on current figures provided by the local news. “That’s second-lowest in Dauphin County. The figures I was working from were not current and they were a little higher than that. So, it’s evidently even gone down some.” Forty-two thousand dollars: not exactly slave wages.

Judge Clark’s finding was for the teachers. But not just for the teachers, but also against the administration. Clark found Hasson’s administration guilty of union-breaking activity. That is, the emplacement of the resolution was pronounced as retaliation for going on a lawful strike. Of course, appeals abound. Asked how much it cost to take the administration to court, Schneider explained that the PSEA covered their court costs. “What you should be asking is ‘How much did it cost them?’ That is taxpayer money,” said Schneider. Her partner in negotiations, Rick Averill, had the figure. “$30,000 a month is what their lawyers were charging them before the court case. What it was during that time, I can only guess.” And the appeal continues to suckle the teat of the taxpayer.

In a truly sickening example of unnecessary roughness, the administration has applied a mathematical guillotine to the first two post-strike paychecks for the teachers. “The lowest figure I’ve heard is 32 cents,” said Schneider, who is topped out on the pay scale and received only $48 from the administration this payday. Instead of using the regular formula of 365 days divided into the yearly salary and multiplying that number by 14 to get a two-week pay amount, the administration divided salaries by 191, the number of days the teachers work, multiplied that number by 7, and deducted that from the paycheck. “It’s almost an insult,” said Schneider. “It’s in retaliation because in most cases when you go out on strike, they don’t deduct it out of one pay, [but] over a series of pays.” Schneider says they expect to receive a similar check on the next payday.

Fortunately, the PA State Education Association (PSEA) furnishes interest-free strike loans for times like these and, since the courts found this to be a lockout, teachers can collect unemployment if necessary. Averill, a high school teacher in the district, has had to take advantage of the strike loan benefit. He says that a grievance was filed Monday February 26 against the administration for this salary slaughter.

Okay, so the law and community support the teachers, the big bad administration is left spitting “Curses, foiled again!”, but what of the students? Are they upset that they will have to lose some springtime days to making up class time? What did they do during the strike? Did the time off atrophy their robust brain muscles into shrinking 18-day-old balloons? How many hours of MTV2 did they watch? We want to know!

“They slept,” said Doyle of his two high school students. “My daughter worked extra and my son just got some rest.” Doyle says his kids understand the strike, but were ready to get back to school.

On the evening of February 26, a public meeting was held at CD Junior High. The Board, teachers and other audience members discussed the ongoing labor dispute and the state of the district.

Board President Merchant had a moment to answer questions. When asked what the climate was, Merchant felt that the 10 to 15 opinions voiced, whether negative or positive, were not necessarily representative of an 80,000-strong community’s attitude. He takes them as “data points” and tries not to make a blanket out of the threads he’s given. Are things going as smoothly as expected? “Oh no!” exclaimed Merchant. “We’re devastatingly disappointed about how things are going. I mentioned this in the meeting, and it comes from the heart: every member of the board wants this to be resolved right away. We wanted this to be resolved a year ago. And we’re not getting there.” He says that even though things have snarled up, the board has not concluded that they should get a resolution with the teachers’ union at all costs. He does admit that he is most disappointed that there is still no talking between the negotiators, that “we’re having a hard time even getting the two parties in the same room together to talk [about] the issues like adults.” He feels, even now, that positions on both sides are still hardening, making negotiations, by definition, nearly impossible. Pleading for moderation in attitude, emotions and philosophy, Merchant wants “both sides to be prepared to get down to hard negotiations, come back to the table again, night after night and come to resolutions. Or else we could be here six months from now.”

There is a parallel path of solutions being implemented to at least get a handshake. The first path is what is required by law: an attempt at non-binding arbitration where, as in baseball, a choice is made between the best solution submitted from side A or the one from side B. The other path, since neither side is confident in non-binding arbitration, amounts to what is being attempted now: a sit-down going over point after point of the differences that separate the two.

What would you personally have done different if you knew that the district could have been in this turmoil? After a reflective pause, Merchant said that the board could have been less assuming. “In retrospect, we probably should have asked the teachers’ union what their main goals and objectives were.” You didn’t ask? “We laid out what ours were. We didn’t get a clear understanding of what theirs [were],” admits Merchant. He thinks that months of incorrect interpretation could have been saved if goals were outlined early on. “We could have gotten there much quicker with smarter openings of the negotiations.”

The communication breakdown continues.

The teachers want their old contract to stay in effect. The administration wants the new contract. Those who must agree, don’t.

Pat Doyle believes that if CD East were made into the bigger high school, the overcrowding of the district schools would be offset, and a third school, a new contract and the strike against it would all be unnecessary. But no one is listening to Doyle.

There are at least two answers to every conflict. The Central Dauphin School District now knows what happens when beliefs are clung to so inflexibly that other answers to the same problem are deemed invalid. But who is locked out?

“Nobody’s winning,” says Merchant. “The teachers are losing; the administration is losing; the students are losing; the parents are losing; every resident is losing because they’re hearing that one of the finest school districts in the area [is] being brought to their knees with the labor dispute. Nobody’s winning.”