A judge said Monday he’s considering giving Washington state’s third-largest school district the option of replacing teachers on the picket line as a strike continued despite the judge’s order to return to work.
The unexpected comment from Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff came as Tacoma school district classes were canceled Monday and Tuesday due to the strike, the News Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/njc9RV ).
“That came as quite a surprise,” district spokesman Dan Voelpel said. “We didn’t ask about that in court. He began speaking out loud about actions to impose next week.”
It would be up to the district to decide whether it wanted to hire temporary replacements, permanent replacements or come up with another plan altogether, Chushcoff said at a hearing Monday.
“I’m seriously considering doing that,” the judge said. “Those are all possibilities.”
The strike has idled 28,000 students and sent most of its 1,900 teachers to picket lines. Teachers voted to strike Sept. 12 and voted again last week to remain on strike despite Chushcoff’s order to return to work.
Monday’s hearing was about how to notify teachers that they are violating the judge’s order. The district will notify them by U.S. mail, Voelpel said. The next court hearing is set for Sept. 27.
State and local public employees, including teachers, have no legally protected right to strike, according to a 2006 state attorney general’s opinion. But that opinion also noted state law lacks specific penalties for striking public employees.
What would Reagan do?
It’s for the children. Give them 48 hours to return to work, fire anyone that does not show up.
If the state of Washington is anything like the state of Wisconsin then nothing will happen to the teachers. School boards, school administrators etc etc are all firmly in the back pocket of the teachers union and honestly couldn’t manage their way out of a wet paper sack let alone have the heart to make a bold management decision. One needs to look no further than what happened in Wisconsin this winter when teachers shut down the Madison school district for 4 days so they could go protest.
I am friends with a school administrator at one of the Madison schools and asked what they did to the teachers whom they knew were up in Madison protesting? Her answer, “well they didn’t get paid”.
That’s it? They abandoned their job for 4 days, shut down the school district, and their punishment was “they didn’t get paid”.
At my place of employment if you are gone for 3 days and don’t show up wth a valid doctors excuse, you don’t have a job anymore and I run a unionized metal fabrication shop with 160 employees.
I wish the school district in Washington good luck, hopefully it is nothing like we have here in The Peoples Republic of Madison.
I can see no good reason why public serpents should ever go on strike, especially school teachers! It’s NOT about the children, it’s all about their jobs and benefits. Teachers in our area ALWAYS wait until school has started to go on strike… they need to go away!
Remember the Air Traffic Controllers strike on Reagan’s watch? This Judge probably does.