Teacher Strikes

Here is a letter I sent to Rep. Dave Reed regarding legislation introduced in the PA House to implement penalties for teacher strikes. I will let you know his response.

In other news, Rep. Reed recently introduced legislation to implement a fingerprinting system for all Pennsylvanians on welfare. This is to help reduce fraud.

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I am writing today to inform you of recent legislation introduced by Rep. Todd Rock regarding teacher strikes titled “The Strike-Free Education Act” (House Bill 1369).

Teacher strikes do nothing but hurt the children, hurt the community, and it makes teachers look like greedy thieves to the public.

Don’t get me wrong, teachers play an important part in a child’s education and they should be compensated appropriately. As I am sure you are aware, when teachers do go on strike they are required to “make-up” those days due to the required number of days students must attend school each year.

When a union in the private sector strikes, the union members are not paid (or else they are minimally paid from union funds). Therefore, they have an incentive not to strike, but if conditions are real bad and they do strike, they have an incentive to get the labor disputes resolved as quickly as possible because they are not being paid. No such incentive exists for teachers. They currently make the same amount of money (on a yearly basis) when they strike.

I strongly urge you to review this legislation, even though the Pennsylvania State Education Association has probably contributed money to you, with the best interests of the community in mind.

Thank You.