In reply to Gina Crafton’s June 23 letter, “Teachers showed how to break rules,” she believes that striking is against the law. Actually the contract between the district and the teachers’ union had a “no strike” clause in it. The problem was that when the contract expired at the end of August last year, there was no longer a “no-strike” clause to enforce. If striking was against the law, the court would have simply ordered the teachers back to work. That didn’t happen. I met with, and exchanged e-mails with the school district last fall asking them why the old contract wasn’t extended. I figured that if the old contract was extended, then the teachers could be ordered back to work. The district made it clear that they would not voluntarily extend the old contract. They wanted to force their proposal on the teachers.
Here are some examples of e-mails I received:
1) Thank you for your question and interest in the issue. The Marysville School District did not propose extending the teachers’ expired contract.
2) Working under the conditions of the existing contract was not an option teachers could choose when they voted in September. The option was to strike or not.
3) Thank you for your e-mail. Regarding your question about continuing the old contract while current negotiations happen, this was not an option set by the school board. They set all the parameters for bargaining.
It took a court order to force the district to extend the teachers’ contract. Remember, this extension was something the district “did not propose, and was not an option teachers could choose from when they voted in September.” They set “all the parameters for bargaining.” It was these “bargaining parameters” that set the stage for the disruption in our school district, not the teachers.
James Dunn
Arlington
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