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Ashton Czech
Dr. John Martin
Conversations About Life
20 April 2016
Teacher Strikes and Unions
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. Ancient Greek philosopher
Aristotle once said this in regards to the tedium of education and the great value of its rewards.
This idea of the importance of education is still present in the modern world, perhaps even more
so. In the United States, children are expected to go through twelve years of school, and
afterwards may choose to further their education at college. Although this amount of schooling
involves a great deal of work on the students part, it is often worth the effort due to the emphasis
society places on education and the numerous benefits it gives. Naturally, in this educationdriven society teachers hold a uniquely important role, and they are directly responsible for the
cultivation of tomorrows leaders and innovators. Because of this, the absence of good teachers
can have devastating consequences. The students and administration of Strongsville High School
in Ohio discovered this when their teachers went on strike. Other, similar strikes throughout the
years have placed the public eye on teacher unions. Although teacher unions currently employ
questionable tactics to further their cause, the growth and empowerment of teacher unions is
important for the advancement of the United States education system.
I grew up and went to school in North Royalton, Ohio, which neighbors the city of
Strongsville. Being so close to my home, it came as quite a shock when I heard that the teachers
of Strongsville had gone on strike. The strike was the biggest story on the news at the time, and

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was the talk of the town. This was particularly true at school, where tensions were rising between
teachers and students. Students were suddenly thrown into doubt; would their teachers go on
strike too? Many had friends in Strongsville and knew just how bad the strike was. At the time, I
thought the strike was incredibly unfair to the students and that all participating teachers should
simply be fired. This fueled my negative views of teacher unions, and was ultimately my
inspiration in choosing teacher strikes and unions as a topic to research.
In contrast, many teachers in North Royalton were excited by the strike. They saw the
situation as someone fighting for their rights, and they cheered on their fellow teachers.
Presumably, they knew of the hardships that the Strongsville teachers faced, and wanted the
strike to succeed. In all likelihood the North Royalton teachers could have been going through
similar difficulties, although I have not been able to find research on this. Others, particularly
those who despised the teachers union, expressed a loss of respect for their colleagues. They felt
that the strike was fueled by greed and went against what it means to be a teacher. The only
aspect of the situation which everyone seemed to share was that of misinformation.
To truly understand what happened during the 2013 teacher strike, one must look back to
the contract renewal negotiations of 2010. Christina Potter was a teacher in Strongsville at the
time and her account of the events are as follows (Ravitch). In 2010, the school board claimed to
be struggling with the school budget and they asked the teachers to help ease the burden by
reducing benefits and freezing the annual pay raise. In return, the board promised to raise a levy
to gain funds and repay the teachers. The teachers agreed to this contract, but the board allegedly
turned against them after negotiations had finished. They tried to take the levy down from the
ballot and spent $.5 million on an attorney. Further research of mine has revealed that the school
board hired the law firm Pepple and Wagoner, which specializes in collective bargaining

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negotiations and union-busting (Debick). According to Mrs. Potter, when the time came to
negotiate the new contracts in July 2012, the attorney presented the teachers with a contract and
refused to negotiate. After months of failed negotiations, the Strongsville teachers began strike
on March 8th, 2013 (Ravitch).
At this point, the strike began to receive large media coverage. Strongsville teachers were
lined up by the town square, holding signs and trumpeting their cause. Many accusations of
violence were thrown around as both teachers and board members claimed to be victims of
injustices committed by the opposing party. Replacement teachers who passed through the strike
line were allegedly taunted by striking teachers, and there was one reported case of a substitutes
car window being smashed by a rock (Sandrick). After eight weeks of turmoil, an agreement was
reached between the school board and teachers which ended the strike (Miller). The new contract
increased teachers pay and brought back pay raises which were frozen from the previous
contract (Sandrick). Although it was a hard pill for many community members to swallow, the
strike did ultimately bring some good for the teachers. They did not have unreasonable demands,
and they effectively protected themselves from shady tactics used by the school board.
After learning of the details, my stance on the Strongsville issue began to change. Before,
it had been a simple issue of teachers being greedy and doing whatever it took to get what they
wanted. It made sense for such selfish individuals to strike. After all, how could someone who
truly cared about their students abandon them? What I did not understand at the time was that the
board housed the truly greedy, and the teachers were acting defensively. Following this line of
thinking, I believe that the teachers of Strongsville were ultimately justified to go on strike. That
being said, it did cause a large amount of damage to the community which cannot be forgotten.

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In the following months after the strike, however, the union may have gone too far. In
retaliation against the replacement teachers, the school administration banned all substitute
teachers who were hired during the strike. In addition, the president of the Cleveland Teachers
Union sued the school so that they would release the names of all the replacement teachers. The
school board had been keeping that information private to protect the teachers against acts of
violence, but the court ruled that the substitutes were not in danger any more (Trevas). In
addition to releasing the information, the school board has to pay for the union presidents legal
fees (Kilpatrick). Many feel that this release of information will hurt the replacement teachers
future job prospects and that this is an example of a union bullying non-members. I agree with
the sentiment that pursuing private information was an underhanded move, but I can understand
the unions reasoning behind such an act.
Even though the unions power to sue for private information is intimidating and
unnerving, their greatest weapon is still the strike. Teacher strikes can be devastating to their
community. Although many look immediately to the absence of education for the day to be the
main harm, the strike hurts the community in other ways as well. For example, strikes can
greatly inconvenience parents because their child can no longer go to school during that
workday, so the parent must find someone else to watch their children for the day. This is
especially noticeable in school districts like Chicago which take care of 325,000 students
(Lyderson and Brown). Many families rely on school to be a pseudo day-care for their children,
and some are unable to watch their children during the day.
Surprisingly enough, research shows that teacher strikes have a negligible impact on
student academics according to Dr. Perry Zerkel, a professor of education and law. For the

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purpose of this paper (and to mirror Dr. Zerkels work), I will divide student academics into three
aspects: student attitude towards school, attendance rates, and traditional academic achievement.
A common assumption of teacher strikes is that they will make students disinterested in
school. After all, how can a student be excited to learn when their teachers are revolting to get
better pay? Teachers are supposed to be role models, and it stands to reason that a teacher
abandoning his or her students will push them away from education. Research suggests
otherwise, and has found no statistically significant difference in student attitude between
schools that have gone through teacher strikes and those that have not (Zerkel). Based on my
own personal experience with the Strongsville incident, this conclusion seems plausible.
Although many students at my school were upset when they heard about the strikes, most
stopped caring after about a week. Similarly, no one that I know of from Strongsville talks about
it much anymore. This could suggest that it did not drastically change school attitude.
Another typical assumption of teacher strikes is that it will harm student attendance. Dr.
Zerkels research gave conflicting results in this regard, only being able to conclude that strikes
do not affect the schools drop-out rate. From my experience, student attendance does suffer.
Because the replacement teachers at Strongsville had difficulty maintaining class order, some
students simply did not go to school. Unfortunately, I cannot find much research on this topic to
back up my claim and all of my evidence is by word-of-mouth, so take it with a grain of salt.
Lastly, many believe that teacher strikes harm academic achievement. Dr. Zerkel claims
that such an assumption is correct in the short-term, although its longevity is questionable. At the
time of the strike, achievement certainly suffers, but time after the strike allows the school to
effectively heal and catch up on missed teachings. Other research suggests the opposite is true. In
studies of the effects of teacher strikes in Ontario schools, it was found that students who

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experienced a strike scored significantly lower on standardized tests, with a correlation to the
number of days missed due to the strike. It is important to note that in these studies, teacher
strikes meant the cancellation of school for the district (Matthews). In the United States, teacher
strikes often lead to the hiring of substitute teachers, so students may not be as negatively
affected.
Overall, the effects of teacher strikes seem to be temporary and limited, with most of the
harm being done to parents. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much research done on this
matter. The vast majority of the research I found all went back to the same strikes in Ontario
between 1990 and 2005; only the method for analyzing the data changed. Most of the material I
found regarding the effects of teacher strikes on students relied entirely on anecdotes from
students and parents. These anecdotes were largely centered on AP students missing classes and
potentially losing college credit, and many others focused on student athletes who would miss
out on practice or games. This lack of research is somewhat disappointing, although it may be of
benefit to the argument that strikes are a useful weapon for teachers. If students were largely
harmed by these strikes, one would expect more studies detailing such harm. The absence of
such studies may suggest that most students make it out fine, and the majority of the harm is only
temporary. Following the argument that teacher strikes lead to a better teaching force and thus
long-term gains, it stands to reason that these strikes are worthwhile. Granted, this seems to be
the case only when replacement teachers are hired during the duration of the strike, or if the
strike is short.
As a student, I personally feel uncomfortable supporting teacher strikes. That being said,
it is plausible that teacher strikes could lead to greater teaching potential. For this argument, one
can look back to the benefits we currently enjoy of labor strikes decades ago. It also stands to

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reason that most of the harm done by a teacher strike is only temporary, as there seems to be little
research on the long-term effects. Because of these factors, I believe that teacher strikes are a
useful tool, but should be used as an absolute last resort. Since the usefulness relies on the
assumption that the absence of research signifies an absence of effect, strikes should be used
sparingly until further research can confirm that they are not overly harmful. Due to the details of
the Strongsville incident, I believe the Strongsville teachers were in such a position where
striking was the sensible option.
Strike is only truly an option in environments where a union is present. As it stands,
teacher union membership is on the decline in the United States. In 2014, 49% of teachers were
union members, whereas in 2003 53% were unionized (Toppo). This decline has many different
causes, but can be reduced to a few major points. First and foremost, baby boomers are hitting
retirement age. Teachers of the baby boomer generation made up a large percentage of unionized
teachers and their retirement will come as a large blow to the education system (Nations
Schools). Naturally, all of these retiring teachers lead to positions opening up in public
schools. As such, schools are hiring more and more teachers. These new teachers are much less
likely to join unions, however, with only about 10% becoming union members (Grossman).
Lastly, charter schools are becoming more and more popular. Teacher unions came as a natural
result of the industrial model of the public education system. Teachers in this system are
effectively laborers with little say in the management of the school and report to clear managers.
Since a large part of the ideology behind charter schools is that they are professional, teacherdriven environments, it makes sense that they do not mesh well with unions. Many teachers who
begin teaching at charter schools feel that teacher unions are not relevant to their needs and they
do not see any benefit in having one (Malin 902). In addition, teacher unions tend to advocate for

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standardized teaching, going against a core aspect of charter schools, which promote
individuality in teaching (Eberts & Stone 362). As a result, charter schools have a low population
of unionized teachers.
This apparent decline of teacher unions gives many mixed feelings. There are those who
are excited to see the union downfall, and there are some who are fearful of a future without
teacher unions. Many fall somewhere in the middle, and feel that teacher unions should stay, but
they need to do something to change (Bascia 210). Ultimately, it boils down to the various pros
and cons of unions that individuals see.
One observed benefit of teacher unions is that they increase the productivity of schools
(Eberts & Stone 354). Productivity in this sense is effectively the academic achievement of the
school, and is calculated by using standardized test scores. This argument assumes that
standardized test scores are an accurate measure of knowledge. One proposed reason as to why
unionized schools have greater productivity is that unions favor standardized teaching. Studies
have shown that although standardized teaching hurts outlier students (both those who are gifted
or mentally challenged), it greatly benefits the average students. Since average students comprise
the majority of a school, schools tend to show better scores overall when they employ standard
teaching. Another reason as to why unionized schools tend to fare better is that unionized
teachers tend to receive better tutelage. This comes from both school administration and union
resources. Admittedly, the benefit of union teaching resources does go hand-in-hand with
standardized teaching, and may go to show that there is only one real reason that union schools
are more productive (Eberts and Stone 362).
Another claimed benefit of teacher unions is that they lead to an increase in the number
of high-quality teachers in a district. It is well known that a unionized school has, on average,

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higher wages and greater job security than a school which is not unionized. Some argue that
these higher wages lead to schools being more selective in who they hire. Typically, schools have
a probationary period before teachers enter tenure and earn a higher salary. Because of the higher
wages and greater job security of tenure, research suggests that unionized schools are much more
observant during the probationary stage and are more likely to fire under-performing teachers. In
addition, these higher wages and tenure serve to keep high-quality teachers at the school, instead
of them leaving in search of a higher-paying position. Overall, studies suggest that teacher
unions promote the dismissal of low-quality teachers and help the retention of high-quality
teachers (Han 46-49).
Perhaps the greatest argument against teacher unions is that it is incredibly difficult to fire
a teacher past the probationary period. Although schools have incentive to pay close attention to
teachers during the probation period, they cannot catch everything. Some bad teachers slip
through, and they can cause major problems for the school. The process for firing a protected
teacher often takes years and incurs great financial costs, not to mention it strains the relationship
between school administration and the union (Chen). In an ideal world, the union would assist in
removing bad teachers, but that doesnt always happen.
Another argument against unions is that they are generally in favor of seniority rules, or
Last in, first out. These rules make it so that in the event of a lay-off, the most junior teachers
will be fired first. The reasoning behind this method is that it would be unfair to suddenly fire
someone who has worked at a facility for decades if they did nothing wrong. Those who dislike
the method argue that it often leads to talented and vivacious teachers being fired (Sepe & Roza
1). Another interesting aspect of seniority favoritism is that it often leads to a greater number of
teachers being laid off. Since the less-experienced teachers are typically paid less, it takes more

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lay-offs to achieve the same effect on the budget. Lastly, this rule of seniority can lead to a
certain generation dominating the school, and this can be seen with the baby-boomer generation.
When this group of teachers reaches retirement age, it puts a strain on the school to find many
new teachers as replacements. If seniority wasnt favored as highly, it would stand to reason that
the age distribution of teachers at a school would be more evened out and this retirement
problem would be nullified.
The last major argument against teacher unions boils down to them having too much
influence over the school and non-members. For example, teachers attending a school that is
unionized have to pay union dues regardless of whether they want to join the union. Union
supporters argue that these teachers enjoy greater salaries because of the union, which offsets the
cost. Even if this claim is true, it still involves removing some element of choice from new
teachers. In addition, teacher unions often bring about monopoly bargaining. Once the majority
of teachers in a school become unionized, the union gains the right to negotiate contracts on
everyones behalf. This means that new teachers cant negotiate their own pay. To combat this,
many states are now starting to pass right to work laws which allow teachers to work at a
school without having to support the union (Compulsory Unionism). Twenty-five states
have passed right to work laws, and they are as follows: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas,
Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada,
North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,
Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (Right to Work).
In addition to these negative effects of teacher unions hurting public image, unions also
have to deal with certain struggles that hurt their position even more. For example, unions have
to work on both long and short-term goals. An example of a long-term goal would be the quality

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of education. This sort of goal is one that the community will gladly support, as it promotes the
well-being of students. A short-term goal would be something like protecting a teacher from
being fired, or negotiating hire wages. These short-term goals largely serve the teachers, and may
not be looked upon favorably by the public. To gather public support, the union has to divert
resources to long-term goals which benefit the students. But if they focus too much on the
students/community, they risk losing the support of the teachers. In essence they have to juggle
long and short-term goals in a way that makes everyone happy (Poole 96).
Another, simpler struggle is that teachers are public employees. This means that their
wages are paid with tax dollars, and indirectly from the pockets of their own community.
Because of this, the issue of wages often pits working-class community members against the
teachers and school. To be able to pay teachers more, the city either has to pull resources from
another project, or raise taxes to pay for it. In looking out for themselves, teachers often end up
hurting their public image (Peterson 13). In a similar vein, teachers cant really use their ultimate
weapon: the strike. As was discussed earlier, a teacher strike mostly hurts the community because
parents need to find alternative arrangements for their children. It just so happens that these
parents are typically working and voting members of the community, and their support is critical
for the teachers. By striking, teachers can greatly diminish the meager public support they
already have.
Due to the struggles teacher unions face, many are beginning to propose that change is
needed. The industrial labor union structure isnt working well for teachers anymore, and many
feel that the unions need to adapt or perish (Poole 96). The main suggestion is that teachers need
to form a professional union and recognize that they are partly responsible for building better
schools (Peterson 11). Professional unionism (at least in regards to teachers) can be divided into

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a few components. First, in a professional teaching environment, teachers are responsible for
upholding a certain level of educational quality. It is not the sole responsibility of their superiors
to ensure that all teachers teach at a high level, the teachers themselves must regulate each other.
Second, teachers need to collaborate and build relationships with both the school administration
and the community (Peterson 16). This can be somewhat difficult as administrators can
frequently change, and schools are volatile environments in general (Bascia 211). In such a
professional work environment where teachers are seen to support quality in education, the
public opinion of professional teacher unions will surely rise. Ideally, these professional unions
would not have to rely on strikes to get what they want and could instead focus on giving the
best education possible.
Based on my research and personal experiences, I believe that teacher unions are capable
of enhancing the quality of education American students receive. However, I believe that change
is necessary for them to reach their full potential. First and foremost, I agree with the idea that
teacher unions need to forgo the structure of a labor union and instead focus on becoming more
of a professional union. I think that the increased competition and enhanced education quality of
such a union will come to benefit everyone. I also believe that, for now, teacher strikes can be a
reasonable tool. They can be used to secure proper working conditions and salary for teachers
that would be otherwise unobtainable. That being said, strikes should certainly be a last resort
tactic. Since there seems to be little research on how teacher strikes affect education in the
United States, it is difficult or impossible to know how much harm they can cause. Additionally,
the need for strikes should diminish if unions adopt a more professional structure. As mentioned
earlier, I support the teachers in the Strongsville incident. Although their strike did harm to the
community, the teachers acted defensively and partly in the interest of the education quality at

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the school. Finally, I believe that teacher unions need to put much thought into rebranding
themselves. The public opinion of teacher unions is poor, and they will not survive if they cannot
establish an image centered on helping students. Professional teacher unions have the capacity to
improve the educational system in America, and it would be a shame if they were dismantled
before reaching full potential. Although tolerating teacher unions may be a bitter thought to
some, I believe we will eventually see the fruit of union labors in decades to come.