Marysville Teacher Strike Fallout

So I had an opportunity presented to me recently. You all know about the adventures of hubby-Eric and the Marysville teachers strike. You probably also know that while I'm on the side of the teachers, I'm not particularly pro-union. Early on in the strike I wrote to one of the state representatives, Hans Dunshee. I want to point out that he is NOT my representative. But he does represent a bunch of folks in Marysville.

Anyway, in my e-mail to him, I mentioned that teachers needed to have something in place if the courts kept deciding that strikes are illegal, despite the fact that state law is completely silent on the subject. I mentioned binding arbitration as a possibility. He was already thinking along those lines, and he's co-sponsoring a state bill that will make collective bargaining a requirement for teachers, and will also specifically outlaw strikes.

So he invited me down to testify in committee about the expeiences of hubby and I during the strike, and tell the legislators that we suppport binding arbitration.

The problem is that I don't know. I mean, I really don't know. While binding arbitration is a good thing in general, it's got problems that make it difficult to implement for teachers. The teacher's union is understandably afraid of losing the ability to bargain effectively. The only hammer the teachers have right now is the threat of a strike. It's not the best hammer, as seen in Marysville, but it does show the administration something about teachers, if they are smart enough to learn the lesson.

And in the case of Marysville, the long strike woke up a lot of the parents in the district to the problems in the district, ranging from foolish spending priorities to downright unethical behavior on the part of some of the school board members. If there was binding arbitration in place, would the parents have learned about those problems and, more importantly, would they have gotten angry enough to vote out the people responsbile and form a parent oversight group?

So even the dark cloud of a forty-nine day teacher strike had a silver lining. Was it worth it? I don't know. And after a lot of thinking and talking with a number of people about the issue, I decided that I could not, in good conscience, go down and support the bill as it is written. Deep inside I think it's probably the best solution to the on-going issue of teacher strikes in this state. Deep inside, I feel that almost anything is better than 49 days of torture. But I can't honestly say that in testimony. And I don't feel that my testimony alone will make or break the bill. So I declined the invitation.

But I'm keeping up on the information about the bill. I'll be following it closely, as it would go into effect immediately, and could impact both Marysville, which still has no contract for its teachers, and Northshore, the district I actually live in which stands a very good chance of having its own strike this fall.

The hearing is tonight, about two hours from now. I also noticed when I checked on the bill this morning that the number of representatives sponsoring it had bloomed from three to eight, including one of my reps. I won't deny that part of me wants this bill to go through, badly. But there is a significant part of me that is frightened of the change. I've been dealing with teacher strikes since I was very young. It's familiar, understandable, and it gets results. Will binding arbitration help or hurt the teachers?