Posted on 09/17/2004 6:19:13 AM PDT by Born Conservative
When the American Federation of Teachers first unionized in 1916 to fight for better working conditions, a group of Scranton educators played a founding role.
Teachers in Chicago laid the foundation for the national group and were bolstered by colleagues in Scranton, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Gary, Ind.
Eighty-eight years later, Northeastern Pennsylvania is again at the forefront of labor unrest in education. But the AFT has slipped into the background.
Striking Abington Heights and Old Forge teachers are part of the National Education Association, a 147-year-old organization that didn't advocate strikes until the late 1960s.
"The Federation believed in strikes, but we didn't," retired Scranton school teacher Annette Palutis said, referring to the NEA four decades ago.
"The AFT walked in front of schools ... We believed in educational seminars." In fact, the NEA was an education policy group originated by administrators in 1857.
Today, the 2.7 million-member NEA represents teachers in 96 percent of the state's public school districts and is the nation's largest teacher union. Pennsylvania had eight of the nation's 23 teacher strikes in 2003.
Although the two organizations have developed similar strategies and educational policies over the last three decades, it was the AFT -- not the NEA -- that pioneered strikes.
The AFT was part of the first U.S. teachers strike in the St. Paul, Minn. public schools in 1946. The NEA waited another two decades before striking.
In the 1960s, both groups had chapters in the Scranton School District -- the AFT-affiliated Scranton Federation of Teachers and the NEA-affiliated Pennsylvania State Education Association, Scranton.
Mrs. Palutis, president of the statewide PSEA from 1991 to 1995, said the difference was evident during the first strike by city teachers in the mid-1960s. While AFT members picketed outside schools, members of her group were at the Hotel Casey watching educational films.
But she said NEA's attitude toward strikes shifted as the decade closed. In 1970, Pennsylvania teachers got the legal right to strike and the bargaining landscape changed, eventually bringing the unions closer together.
The AFT affiliate won the right to become the collective bargaining agent for Scranton teachers, Mrs. Palutis said, but the PSEA still has a Scranton chapter to this day.
"I don't think there's a whole lot that's different between (the unions)," said Wythe Keever, assistant communication director for the PSEA.
Local strikes
In recent years, members of both unions have walked the picket line.
Abington Heights's 252 teachers and Old Forge's 66 teachers are striking for the second time this year after also walking out in the spring with fellow NEA members in Carbondale Area, which has since settled.
AFT-affiliated teachers at the Career Technology Center in Scranton threatened a strike last year and others went on strike in Pittston in 1997.
But there are fewer AFT strikes for the simple reason that there are fewer local unions -- of the 501 public school districts in the state, teachers at only 18 are represented by that group. They include public school teachers in Scranton, Dunmore and Pittston, plus the CTC.
Teachers from the other 483 districts are associated with the PSEA and NEA. Nationally, NEA membership is twice that of AFT.
Union history
The AFT was known for its emphasis on pay and working conditions, said Curt Rose, an assistant director with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
In the 1960s, the NEA also began organizing their members to negotiate for better pay and working conditions.
After state lawmakers limited teachers strikes in 1992, the unions agreed to stop stealing each other's members and the state affiliates began to collaborate.
And the unions' reputations have changed. Now, differences on issues like health care -- a major sticking point in Abington Heights and Old Forge -- are small.
The PSEA collective bargaining goals from 2003 call for "fully employer-paid medical plans" -- a philosophy echoed by John Tarka, executive director of Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers.
But unions have also settled for less -- AFT locals in Scranton and Pittsburgh and PSEA unions in Franklin Area and West Lebanon have agreed to co-pays over the past few years.
John Holland, field director for the Northeastern Pennsylvania region of the PSEA, said the "vast majority" of its 122 locals have fully paid health care. But Mr. Tarka said that doesn't accurately represent the state -- 31 percent of contracts signed during the 2003-04 school year included teacher co-pays.
At Abington Heights, where the district insures all of its teachers, overall health care benefit costs have leaped from $2 million in 2001-02, the year the contract expired, to a projected $3.3 million this year.
In Old Forge, the overall cost of health care benefits has jumped from $647,693 to $680,750 since the contract expired in August 2003, board secretary Anthony Spadoni said.
And other PSEA collective bargaining goals sound much the same as Mr. Tarka's priorities: strong salaries, smaller class sizes, teacher involvement in day-to-day decisions, properly certified teachers, safe schools, and pay scales that reward new and veteran teachers.
DAVID SINGLETON , a staff writer for The Tribune, contributed to this report.
But, as I tell my students, I am paid rather hansomely to help you succeed or watch you fail; you choose which.
But, as I tell my students, I am paid rather hansomely to help you succeed or watch you fail; you choose which.
Aristotle would never go on strike.
Aristotle would never go on strike.
I taught school for ten years and loved the job. Hated the union, and noticed that the union was not for better education, something I thought all teachers should be for.
Later in industry (where I continued teaching only to my peers), I learned many techniques that I could have used in the classroom, techniques to motivate those who see no benefit to their being in school. I am retired now, but I still believe these techniques could rouse a failing school system and get kids back on track.
The teaching techniques are from the Kepner Tregoe Institute, for who ever is interested. But the first thing that must be done is get the union our of the political system. They should not be allowed to influence elections of school board members, there is a clear conflict of interest in this from the standpoint of the community at large. Teachers should be able to be hired and fired based on what they can do in the classroom and on campus and certification and/or union membership should not matter a whit. *getting down off soapbox*
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