By Dale Martin
New Haven Teachers Association members have authorized their leadership to call a strike if district administrators don't start treating teachers with respect at the bargaining table and settle the contract fairly.
"We don't want to strike, but we are prepared to do what it takes," says NHTA President Don Heinsohn. "We are forced now to consider all options to secure a fair contract that protects health care for New Haven teachers and provides adequate salaries so our community doesn't lose quality teachers to surrounding school districts."
Educators in the 13,000-student district have gone without a contract for nine months. The showdown is over several issues, including the district having the largest class sizes in Alameda County, the district's offer of only a 1.4 percent salary increase, and its attempt to cap health care benefits.
The district's compensation package would spend less on unit members in 2004-05 than was spent in 2003-04. At the same time, the district is budgeting a $5 million increase in revenues and is hoarding millions of dollars in reserves, much more than is required by the state, says Heinsohn.
Numerous protests and rallies have not inspired the district to negotiate fairly, says Heinsohn. "Teachers here are at the end of their rope." The last time the unit reached agreement without having to go to impasse was in 1996.
On March 17, teachers started working to the rule for the second time in two years, stopping all the extra hours of free work that teachers do every day. "The district has made us veterans of these types of actions," says Heinsohn. "Compliance is widespread despite the fact that teachers don't like having to work to the rule."
"It's really hard to do this," says Catherine Carroll, a fourth-grade teacher at Delaine Eastin Elementary School. "It's really impossible to get everything done. Some of my parents are concerned about their students not receiving homework, but they are giving us a lot of support."
"Teachers are altruists by nature. We love working overtime with and for our students, but the district needs to know we are united and will strike if we have to," says Heinsohn. "Work-to-rule exposes a truth about public education in America, which is not dirty, not little, and not a secret. This system only works because we do hundreds and thousands of hours of free work every year in every classroom."
NHTA members have been conducting informational picketing before and after school. At a recent meeting of the school board, teachers conducted the largest rally in NHTA's history.
NHTA has also filed two unfair labor practice charges against the district, one for regressive bargaining — lowering their offer from 2 percent to 1.4 percent — and another for disciplining employees for wearing union buttons at work.
"The bargaining position of this district is a declaration of war on our members," said bargaining team chair Robert Vinson at a recent school board meeting. "No one wants a strike. We are doing everything we can to prevent a strike. But if we can't get a fair contract that reduces class size and protects our basic demands on salary and health care, I am afraid that is exactly where we are headed."
