Neshaminy Teachers' Strike

The Neshaminy Federation of Teachers (NFT) is on strike, or at least will be by Monday January 9^th. The NFT leadership asserts that after the last meeting in December with the School Board, they became convinced that the Board was unwilling to compromise at all and that their only real course of action was to strike.

I have great sympathy for the teachers. Teachers have a very difficult job and are generally undervalued. Teachers, like public employees in general, are everywhere under fire. Their pensions and benefits, historically seen as part of a bargain meant to satisfy professionals who in many cases have advanced degrees to take lower paying and lower prestige jobs, are now being taken away … a move somehow justified as necessary in the wake of a financial crisis that had nothing to do with pensions. The teachers in Neshaminy have been teaching without a contract for a number of years now. They have been also been attacked by a group of people who traffic in innuendo and insults, have linked them to everything from socialism to treason to a willful desire to harm children, and have created a poisonous atmosphere in which a community has been pushed to take sides.

All that being said, I think the strike is a mistake. I think the strike is a mistake for several reasons. First, it risks alienating even more parents. Parents want their kids to be in school. Many parents were already upset about the Union’s policy of teaching to the contract (essentially not doing anything that wasn’t explicitly in the contract), something they did last year and are still doing this year, albeit in a relaxed form. Many were put off by the timing of pickets this year as well. I personally thought that the presence of picketing teachers at kindergarten orientation was inappropriate at best. So, the community is not at its most receptive moment. Second, the economic situation makes folks less likely to be receptive to the teachers’ position. That might not be logical or fair, but it is what it is and the teachers’ union should take it into account. Third, no action takes place against a blank slate. This strike takes place in a community that is sharply divided and in the midst of a dialogue that has been marked by illogic and nastiness. I have a hard time believing that this will do anything to change the situation. The school board’s immediate reaction was to suspend negotiations, and the comment boards are full of nasty rhetoric aimed at teachers and their union. I have to admit I don’t know that the teachers have a lot of alternatives and maybe they think that the arbitration that kicks in at the end of the strike will put them in a stronger position or even help resolve the whole thing … but I still wonder whether this might have been a good time to think a little harder about all of this or think more outside the box. Maybe they could have taken their case more directly to the parents, or mounted a more positive public relations campaign. I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s clear that the strike that is set to start on January 9^th is going to end well for the teachers.