11 mo. ago • 98%

OR House Republicans Want to Make It Illegal for Teachers to Strike

www.wweek.com House Republicans Want to Make It Illegal for Teachers to Strike

20 comments

Hmm, "Illegal to strike" sounds a lot like "forced labor".

The fuck they gonna do, chain them to a desk? Newsflash assholes, jailing teachers isn't gonna fucking put them back in classrooms.

54
- No but it will convince them to quit and they city can hire cheaper teachers that "aren't woke".
  
  21
  
  The city can hire cheaper people, but not teachers. That's been the problem the last few years - not enough teachers (because they're treated and paid like shit), so the requirements to stand in front of a class continue to drop.
  
  7
  
  I have a feeling that we're already skewing this way nationally with low pay and high academic requirements.
  
  1
- Nah, they'll pull a Reagan and tell everyone striking that they're fired.
  
  15
  
  "Fun" fact: Reagan's little stunt with the air traffic controllers left the government with a severe shortage in talent and experience in air traffic controllers for a good decade afterwards. Turns out you can't just fire everyone in the country who does a given job without consequences, particularly with a job that is high stress.
  
  12
Permanently Deleted

29
Making it illegal for people to strike seems to violate our rights for freedom of expression. Or am I misinterpreting that right? I’m a little fuzzy when it comes to precedents and shit for laws and rulings

22
- Striking is not the same as speech. It goes far beyond. They can't stop teachers from protesting or speaking out. No law could do that. They can, however, immediately fire and replace anyone who refuses to work, absent strike protections. They can call in the Pinkertons to break picket lines absent strike protections.
  
  It's not about expressing themselves. It's about collective bargaining with the threat of the employer fully losing access to the labor if they refuse.
  
  And the NLRA specifically does not cover public sector employees, so they can absolutely ban teachers from striking. They shouldn't, but they certainly could.
  
  11
  
  Striking isnt speech. Money is speech. 1984 was an instruction manual.
  
  9
- You would think, wouldn't you? But this approach is quite common. Biden's "deal" to prevent the rail strike was to make it illegal for them to strike. Air traffic controllers were also legally prevented from striking in the 80s, but did a wildcat strike anyway. Reagan fired all of them and then banned them from ever being rehired.
  
  8
  
  Sources for your Biden claims please.
  
  1
- I could see some groups where a ban on strikes could be reasonable. Police, fire brigade, and ambulance come to mind. Even then though, it should be controls, not absolute. e.g. fire brigade have to give the army time to mobilise and prepare to cover for them. Teachers are not one of them. An absolute ban is just an invitation to drive work conditions into the floor, and cripple the service...
  
  1
We should have passed legislation that capped class size to 20 kids. If there aren't enough teachers, tough shit. Also, teachers should be paid a good wage and we shouldn't be paying for schools or of property taxes, for fuck sake.

13
- Strongly agree with all your points. But what would it look like to not have enough teachers, alongside laws that cap class sizes? Millions of kids would go uneducated. We would also need a strong push to add more teachers to the mix, something like actually paying people to go to school to become teachers along with good wages and benefits.
  
  6
  
  I don't disagree. I've said for a couple of decades that we need to tie the GI Bill directly to the draft and create a different form of the GI Bill specifically for public service.
  
  There's plenty of ways to serve your country, not all of them have to involve killing brown people in foreign lands.
  
  8
Nice of WWeek to point out that this is Republicans. The KGW article just referred to "lawmakers," which is a touch misleading.

12
Solidarity!

My little district in southern Oregon has been investing heavily in instructional aids, counselors, and building upgrades. I am a Specials teacher and work with every student from preschool through fifth grade, and in just over a year, I already have seen better behaviors and a more positive atmosphere in my three schools. We also have seen regular COL increases, plus a larger bump twice in four years.

PDX teachers deserve their demands. Union Strong!

11
Just more #fascism from the #GOP.

9
Iowa does shit like that too. It’s atrocious.

6
They should make it illegal for OR politicians to be dicks

3
Instead of paying teachers and improving?

2

You've viewed 20 comments.