Strike Ban On Teachers Stirs Again Fife Walkout, Longest In History, Prompts Calls To Legislators

The teachers’ strike that closed schools here for more than five weeks has revived interest in legislation barring walkouts by the state’s public-school teachers.

Fife’s 37-day walkout - the longest in state history - dragged on when negotiators for teachers and the district could not reach agreement on pay for after-school duties such as parent-teacher meetings.

Since last week’s settlement, some Fife parents have contacted legislators and citizen advocates, trying to generate renewed interest in a strike-ban proposal that died in the state House of Representatives without a vote earlier this year.

In addition to barring teacher strikes, the original bill would have imposed fines for striking, created a new mediation process, limited the types of issues that could be bargained and required that copies of a contract be available to the public before and after ratification.

The stripped-down final version would have banned strikes and allowed public inspection of proposed agreements 10 days before ratification.

A 1958 state Supreme Court ruling barred public employee strikes, but there is some ambiguity about that ruling’s effect on teacher strikes.

When Pierce County Superior Court Judge Waldo F. Stone declared the Fife teachers’ strike illegal and ordered them back to work on Nov. 13, he relied on that 1958 ruling.

But he noted the Legislature has not moved to specifically ban teacher strikes. And the teachers’ union based its legal argument on that omission.

Legislators have specifically forbidden strikes by community college faculty, ferry workers, police officers, firefighters and other state employees. But it has refused to move against teacher strikes in four legislative sessions where the issue has been raised - including the most recent session, the union noted.

Some feel that could change in the wake of the Fife walkout.

“There’s a consensus that something has to be done,” Republican Rep. Tim Hickel said.

“I don’t think there’s consensus on what should be done,” said Hickel, whose 30th District includes parts of the Fife School District and the Federal Way School District, where teachers struck last year.

He contends Democrats won’t support a strike ban because the party gets support from the state teachers’ union, the Washington Education Association.

But WEA spokeswoman Teresa Moore said the organization has no “special relationship” with Democratic Gov. Mike Lowry.The question of banning strikes is “an incredibly tough question. It’s very divisive, and frustrating at times like this when kids have been out of school for a period of time,” Dey said.

Bellevue-area parent Karen Fraback, who pushed for the strike ban last year, draws a line between bargaining and striking. And while she believes bargaining should cover wages, benefits and grievance procedures, she opposes giving teachers a say in setting school calendars or break periods.

“I want to return power to the school board,” said Fraback, who became involved in the issue when teachers in the Issaquah School District participated in a multidistrict strike several years ago.

She said she’s talked with Fife parents interested in reviving the strike ban proposal.

But some Fife parents supported the teachers, Moore noted.

“If you ban strikes, you … take away the school district’s incentive to deal with a major problem, and that is a relationship problem,” she said.

Teacher strikes get the attention they do because they are rare, she said. Of the 296 school districts statewide, only Fife teachers struck this year, she said. Last year, teachers walked out in Federal Way and Bremerton.