Teachers in West Virginia staged a nine-day, statewide strike and won a wage increase and other benefits.
Teachers in Oklahoma are getting ready to walk out as well.
Teachers in Arizona? Theyβre watching, wearing red on Wednesday and wondering just how far they should go.
The once-unimaginable prospect of Arizona teachers walking off the job is slowly becoming a possibility. Not a likelihood, but a threat with some legitimacy.
Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, was speaking cautiously just over a week ago, when The Arizona Republic quoted him as saying the βstatewide action we needβ is to elect new officials, not strike.
But when I talked with Thomas Monday, the day before the West Virginia teachers won their walkout, his rhetoric was growing stronger.
βThe possibility of some kind of statewide action increases as they (teachers) are ignored,β he said. βTheyβre inspired by whatβs happening in West Virginia.β
βI see a growing number of teachers that feel a statewide action is the only way theyβll be taken seriously.β
As they feel their way forward, today Arizona teachers are being encouraged through an online campaign to wear red to raise awareness of issues such as low salaries, too few certified teachers and too many students per class.
βWe donβt have a lack of certified teachers in Arizona,β Mary Martinez, president of the Sunnyside Education Association, told me. βWe have a lack of certified teachers who want to teach.β
This movement began not in the unions like the AEA or the locals for each district, but from teachers organizing online in response to the West Virginia walkout. They created a Facebook group called Arizona Educators United on Sunday, and by Tuesday had brought 9,400 people together that way. The unions are jumping aboard a movement that is growing organically online and in the hallways and break rooms of schools.
βA good majority of our members have talked about whatβs happening in West Virginia and whether thatβs something that we should do,β Martinez said. βIf we get to the point that weβve tried all the avenues, this would be a last resort. This is something that I as a leader would consider.β
State law does not make it illegal for teachers to strike, longtime Phoenix labor attorney Stanley Lubin told me. In the late 1970s, he took part in a key case involving teachers in the Roosevelt School District in Phoenix who called in sick as part of a work stoppage.
The state Court of Appeals said the teachers could not strike, but the Arizona Supreme Court overturned that ruling, he said.
βThey took the position that they didnβt have to decide that issue, then ruled in our favor on other grounds,β he said.
Arizonaβs status as a βright-to-workβ state is irrelevant, he said, because that simply means employees canβt be forced to pay union dues in order to work for a given employer.
But the legalities of striking may be less of a concern than the politics surrounding a possible walkout. The state Capitol and Governorβs Office are controlled by people who have a skeptical view of school districts and their teachers, and downright hostility toward teachersβ unions. On the other hand, Arizonaβs electorate has been sympathetic to schools and teachers and could ensure the officials donβt overreact.
Thereβs also the fact that about 16 percent of Arizonaβs public-school students go to charter schools. If a walkout involved exclusively district teachers, that could turn the public either way. They might support those walking out, or they might think charter-school teachers are acting more responsibly by staying in school.
Then thereβs the fact that Arizonaβs school system is decentralized. Most of the power to set teacher salaries resides in the individual school districts, so while a statewide walkout by teachers could lead to the Legislature increasing funding for schools, in the end the districts would all have to pass that money on to employees. The dramatic, West Virginia-style outcome is unavailable in our system.
Whatever happens, Gov. Doug Duceyβs office is prepared to defend him as the person who turned around education funding. Spokesman Patrick Ptak noted that statewide, teachers are getting a 2 percent raise over a two-year period, as part of what the governorβs office describes as a $380 million injection of money beyond what is required as an inflation increase.
The state superintendent of public instruction, Diane Douglas, is trying to push the governor and Legislature to go further. For the second year in a row, sheβs had legislators introduce bills that would give voters the chance to increase the state Prop. 301 sales tax for education from 6/10 of one cent to a full cent per dollar, and to extend its life beyond the current endpoint in 2021.
So far, even the idea of putting that proposal on the ballot has gone nowhere in the Legislature. Itβs that kind of inaction that is leading teachers to leave the profession and driving those who remain to gird themselves for a walkout.
Sandy Faulk, the president of the Marana Education Association, told me, βI have never been part of a walkout before. Iβve never been part of a strike before. Clearly in West Virginia it was very powerful, made a statement and made change.
βIn the climate like weβre in right now, an act like that could make change.β
