| HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source |
 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2010 7:44 am |
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Judge orders striking Kent teachers back to work SEATTLE — A King County judge said Thursday that a strike by Kent teachers is illegal and they must return to class after the holiday weekend.King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas granted the Kent School District’s request for an injunction to force teachers back to school, while also encouraging both sides to resume bargaining. The district’s 26,000 students missed their fourth day of school on Thursday. Darvas said she believes that the right to strike is a basic civil liberty, but that in this case the law says this strike is illegal. “No Washington court has ever held that teachers have the right to strike,” she said. The Kent teachers’ top issues are class size, compensation and time with students. The judge’s order is effective Tuesday, and the district expects to resume classes on Wednesday. The 1,700 affected teachers have decided to delay a vote on what to do next until Monday, giving both sides the weekend to come to an agreement. Since it took a judge’s order to end a 49-day teachers’ strike in Marysville six years ago, school districts have been asking the courts to get involved in their disputes with teachers unions. In 2003, the Marysville walkout ended when the district and a group of parents persuaded a judge to order the teachers back to work. The Legislature has debated changing state law to forbid teachers’ strikes about half a dozen times in the past 30 years, but lawmakers have not succeeded in pushing such proposals past the powerful teachers union, the Washington Education Association. Rich Wood, the union’s spokesman, said districts across the state have sought injunctions at least 30 times over the past few decades. In most cases, teachers disobeyed the rulings and continued to strike. In 2006, Attorney General Rob McKenna issued an opinion that public school teachers have no right to strike in Washington, but that state law imposes no penalties for such walkouts. He spoke on the issue in response to a request from state Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, who sponsored a bill that year to establish penalties for teachers’ strikes. The bill did not pass. McKenna said state employees don’t have the constitutionally protected right to strike unless it’s expressly granted to them by the Legislature. The WEA said neither the Legislature nor the state courts has ever established a definitive rule concerning teachers’ strikes. Several state laws prohibit public employee strikes, but each targets a certain kind of state employee, such as police or firefighters. K-12 teachers have never been mentioned in anti-strike laws. “Courts can’t solve these problems. It has to be done at the bargaining table,” Kent Education Association President Lisa Brocklin-Johnson said. |
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- Tech Talk: No excuse today for going without a Web site
- State already raising fees and rates that restrict business growth
- Some legislators again targeting people’s initiative petition rights
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