Hi ,
Earlier this month, Newton educators went on strike for 11 days in order to negotiate for a fair contract. This historic strike and the growing number of strikes led by educators highlights why we need to protect this right for all workers. That’s why I filed H.1845 with Rep. Connolly, and Sen. Rausch, which would restore the right to strike for public sector workers (not including public safety). It’s no secret that I am a proud supporter of unions and the organized labor movement.
Labor justice isn’t merely a political stance for me, it’s personal. My mom’s first job when she immigrated to the US was as a housemaid for a wealthy family in Brookline, but everything changed for her when she got her job as a flight attendant for TWA. It is thanks to the contracts her union fought vigorously for and had to go strike for, that my single mom was able to provide all of the opportunities I had growing up. I am who I am because of organized labor. K12 educators, like flight attendants, do labor that is considered women’s work and as such, their labor is deeply undervalued, underpaid,
and they are expected to sacrifice and do their work out of the love of their students. Yet when they stand up for themselves, they are often told they are selfish or “only doing it for the money.” Let me be clear, what Newton educators did was incredibly courageous and admirable.
They put everything on the line for the most marginalized and lowest paid educators and for their most vulnerable students in need. They stood up to the crippling and often invisible violence of budget cuts (see end of newsletter on Prop 2.5), ensured the sustainability of education as a profession, and as such they will be critical to the long(er) term struggle to save our public schools. And for all of that, it is one of the greatest honors and joys of my life to join them on the picket line.
I will also respond to the critics, including: “Wouldn’t legalizing strikes encourage more strikes? Wasn’t what the union did irresponsible and damaging, especially to the students who lost valuable class time? After all, what they did is illegal, right?” These questions, especially the last one, calls to question whether going on strike is right or wrong and heavily relies on the law to dictate that. My belief is that the
law is wrong, similar to how it has been unjust and wrong many times in our history and today. I discussed many of these issues on GBH Greater Boston, which you can view here. |
Educators’ demands are consistent and fair, stonewalling tactics are not It turns out, we all want to be treated with dignity and respect, that’s all a fair contract is. There are four main demands put forth by the Newton Teachers Association (NTA): -
Significantly increase the abysmal and disgraceful wages for paraeducators (aka. teachers’ aides or ESPs)
- Provide mental health support for students
- Increase all educators wages (a.k.a. COLA or cost of living adjustment)
- Parental leave
You can read the full details of what the NTA demanded and won here.
There are many similarities between NTA’s demands and demands of other locals in other districts. Massachusetts has over 300 school districts and the vast majority of contracts are 3 years long, as such there are on average about 100 contracts negotiated per year. While not all of them have the same demands as NTA, many do, and yet their negotiations did not require going on strike, nevermind an 11 day-long strike.
The vast majority of contracts are settled without students missing any class time.
What made Newton different was not about the union being uniquely overzealous or unreasonable, but has more to do with management’s unwillingness to negotiate in good faith, and for stonewalling for an absurd 16 months. It’s important to contextualize these demands and I think most of us can agree that we want these demands for all workers. 1. Paraeducators wages Paraeducators are most often the lowest paid workers in the bargaining unit. They care for and educate the students with the highest needs (including special education and provide 1-on-1 support).
They are disproportionately women and people of color, and it is highly skilled, deeply important, and essential work. While paraeducators are often belittled for doing “part-time” or “assistant” work, it’s simply not true and nearly 80% of them have a college degree.
It is truly shameful that in most districts, paraeducators are paid a meager $15K-$29K per year. In one school district, the lowest step was paid $13K a year! Following the strike in Newton, paraeducators' starting wages increased from $28,270 to $36,778, or a 30% increase. While this is still not a living wage in Massachusetts, it’s a massive step in the right direction. You may recall that in 2020, Somerville educators also rallied for a fair contract. At the time paraeducators made a little over $20K a year, now the starting pay is $36K.
2. Paraeducators wages It goes without saying that this is a growing and important need for young people. 47% of parents surveyed said they were concerned about their children’s mental health.
Many schools have made significant investments in social workers and mental health supports in schools, including Somerville, which again, was thanks to the union’s contract negotiations.
In Newton, this was a major sticking point for negotiations. This is something we should all care about, especially for students who do not have the resources or support to hire individual mental health counseling. 3. Increase all educators wages or COLA While this can get complicated fast, (the NTA has been transparent and studious so you can read all the details and how negotiations on COLA evolved day-to-day during the strike here
) the big picture is simple: educators are underpaid and their pay has decreased compared to their peers. Teachers make 26.4% less than equivalent college-educated workers
, or 73.6 cents for every dollar earned by other professionals. What is striking is that teachers used to make 93.9 cents on the dollar in 1996, and in 1960, teachers used to earn a 14.7% premium (for women teachers only). If we truly cared about education, educators should absolutely be earning a premium for their labor,
but they are not. Instead, they are economically penalized for it. Although Massachusetts fares better than the national average (with a 20% wage penalty), these aren’t numbers to be proud of, especially as the cost of living in Massachusetts is much higher than most of the country. |
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4. Parental leave
Newton educators won 40-60 days of leave, with 20 days paid by the district, plus utilizing sick time. This is a big step in the right direction, and the US remains a terrible outlier on how we treat parents. |
Somerville also won parental leave for educators, and many other locals have negotiated for humane parental leave as well. |
It takes two to tango and negotiate in good faith The most salient injustice of the current law that prohibits public sector workers from going on strike is that there is a punishment for educators going on strike (or in other words, sticking to demands to be treated with dignity and respect), but there is no punishment for bad faith negotiation practices by management. While it is true that NTA made the decision (with 98% of their 2000 members in support) to go on strike, after 16 months of stalling tactics, stonewalling, and surface bargaining, they were left with no other options, especially with their contract expired for several months.
It is too simplistic and plainly wrong to lay all the blame squarely on educators, but that’s what this law does when only educators are fined exorbitantly by the courts or are blamed for students missing classes. Even the judge who ruled on this case expressed concern that escalating fines may “undermine effective and fair collective bargaining.” and outlined in his ruling Commonwealth Employment Relations Board vs. Newton Teachers Association what is needed to bargain in good faith, in effect, urging the management to do so immediately. At the end of the day, we all benefit from healthy labor-management relations but this requires good faith bargaining on both sides.
Management in this case utilized unfair and costly stalling tactics, which often involves hiring expensive anti-union lawyers and communications consultants, rather than the decision-makers simply meeting with labor at the negotiation table. It was disgraceful how much management tried to weaponize the law, rather than negotiate. It is clear that educators would rather be in the classroom with their students, yet management left them no other option, so who is responsible? |
Protecting the right to strike would ensure healthy labor-management relations
Our bill addresses all of these issues by not only restoring the right to strike so that the law or fines can’t be weaponized to give management an unfair advantage, but it also includes a provision that the union must engage in six months of negotiations before a legal strike can take place.
This will discourage unethical stonewalling tactics by management and six months after all is a very reasonable time frame to negotiate a three year contract. It is clear that a level playing field and good faith negotiations by both parties will prevent last resort measures like going on strike. |
Bargaining for the common good
Educators have been forced to do more with less. While we praise them for being essential workers and heroes, tasked with educating the next generation, they bear the brunt of under-resourcing our students and schools by not providing them the support they need to succeed and they are all too often blamed when our students don’t thrive. The Newton educators broke this toxic cycle and their courage will have a long lasting positive impact on them and their students. I am particularly inspired by their courage to bargain for the common good. Some of the biggest sticking points would not impact educators directly, but were demanded to ensure their students are set up for success.
We’ve seen this take many forms across other locals that went on strike, including ensuring affordable housing for students, scholarships for students, and caseload caps for students with special needs. When educators make the difficult decision to go on strike, they have everything to lose and still take that step for the well-being of their students. That is truly inspiring and shows the true power of organizing and solving collective problems together. I wrote more about bargaining for the common good in the Globe here. |
Join us for office hours - save the date
I will be hosting office hours in March, please join us to ask any questions you may have about state and local government! - Monday March 11, 8:30-10am at Brady Towers (for residents), with Senator Pat Jehlen and Ward 3 Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen.
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Saturday March 16, 12pm-2pm, location TBD with a Zoom option available here, with Senator Pat Jehlen, Ward 5 Councilor Naima Sait, and Ward 5 School Committee Member Laura Pitone
Can’t make these dates? Please reach out anytime at erika@electerika.com or via phone at 857-264-1096, feel free to call or text, if I don’t pick up, leave a message and I or my team will call you right back. We will also host joint office hours every month so stay tuned for more dates to meet your elected officials in-person. |
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Municipal budget cuts and prop 2.5
This is a short explainer on an important Massachusetts specific context on why municipal budgets have been cut and struggling over time and will continue to do so without bold and systemic tax reform. Combine this with the rapidly increasing cost of living that all workers face, including municipal workers, makes professions such as education unsustainable with this status quo. Municipal budgets in Massachusetts are heavily reliant on property taxes and more so than other states because Massachusetts does not permit municipalities to levy their own sales, income, or other forms of taxes.
This is why Prop 2.5 had such an impact on municipal budgets and continues to do so. Prop 2.5 limits property tax revenue from increasing more than 2.5 percent per year. There are exceptions which I won’t dive into for simplicity sake, but you can read about them here
. During times of high inflation (or higher than 2.5%), Prop 2.5 forces budgets to be cut in real terms with no way to make up for those cuts later (except through an override ballot question) and so this has a compounding impact over time on budgets.
Prop 2.5 was passed by ballot referendum in 1980, and was put into effect in 1982. As you can see since then, inflation more often averaged above 2.5% than not
. While in one year, a 1%-2% cut in the budget in real terms may seem small, compounded over time, it causes municipal budgets to decrease significantly. It’s also worth noting that inflation has been significantly higher in 2021, 2022, and 2023 and as such over 3 years we’ve seen much more rapid forced budget cuts in real terms over this period.
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Cost of living adjustments are important for all workers, but particularly for municipal workers who continuously face increased cost of living (most notably in Massachusetts, through increasing housing costs) and over time have been paid less with inflation adjusted real terms. This is partly what has caused educators’ pay to decrease so significantly in comparison to their counterparts over time.
I hope this is a helpful explainer on the Massachusetts specific context of our laws that have, by design, cut municipal budgets over time, much more significantly recently, and how that has impacted the municipal workforce. My goal here is not to provide all of the solutions to fix this mess that will need to be taken up in future newsletter(s), but what is clear is that this status quo is not sustainable and will require significant political will to change. Educators have stood up to this unsustainable status quo and will continue to be the solution to saving our public schools.
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