West Virginia teachers shut down public schools across the state on Thursday and Friday when they walked out over pay and benefits. The state currently ranks 48th in teacher pay, ahead of just Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. The teachers had had enough:
Ms. Pinkerman, a single mother with a daughter in college, said she continued to look for jobs in neighboring Ohio and Kentucky, where the pay was better. She said the 4 percent combined raise, which was reduced from the 5 percent overall increase passed by the Senate, was “a huge slap in the face.”
“College is expensive. There’s always things you have to buy, constantly,” Ms. Pinkerman said. “It’s difficult whenever my premium keeps going up. My deductible’s high. It’s just really hard to make it.”
The average salary for teachers in West Virginia is $45,622 a year, well below the national average of $58,353. When the teachers last struck statewide, in 1990, their pay ranked 49th in the nation.
But those weren't the only issues:
Randolph, of the teachers union, cited pay and benefits as two key items that are easy to understand, but said the strike was about more than that.
“This is a cumulative strike,” she said. “I mean, the pay and the benefits have been problems for years, and there’s constantly been the promises of, ‘We’ll take care of this, we’ll take care of this.’ It’s finally gotten to the point where, you know, the promises aren’t enough.”
Who knows what, if anything, will change, but the teachers certainly made the point that they are motivated and united and able to make themselves heard.
● Trump appointee conflict of interest throws key ruling into doubt, Josh Eidelson writes:
A top National Labor Relations Board appointee of U.S. President Donald Trump should have recused himself in a ruling that restricted employees of contractors and franchisees from pursuing claims against big corporations, the agency’s inspector general said.
In a memo obtained by Bloomberg News, NLRB Inspector General David Berry flagged what he called “a serious and flagrant problem and/or deficiency” in the handling of conflict-of-interest issues by the agency. Berry’s memo concerned a December ruling in which the NLRB reversed an earlier board decision by a Democratic majority making it easier for employees to pursue federal complaints against parent companies or other firms for which they ultimately work.
● Also by Eidelson, the Supreme Court case that could devastate unions.
● More on that: Behind Janus: Documents reveal decades-long plot to kill public-sector unions.
● Working harder or finding it harder to work:
… workers seem to be increasingly separating into two groups: prime-age adults who are falling out of, or never get into, the labor market at all, and prime-age adults who are employed and working more hours.
And then the people who are working too many hours because their jobs demand it of them are encouraged to think it shows that they’re better and more deserving than the people who couldn’t get good jobs.
● Betsy DeVos is helping Puerto Rico re-imagine its public school system. That has people deeply worried. (As well it should.)
● Just days after teachers were among those killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Florida legislature was working on a bill attacking their union.
● Postal-service workers are shouldering the burden for Amazon.