Who really benefits here? Giving teachers a green light to strike would hurt students

First appeared in Contrarian Boston 2.8.23

By David Mancuso

It’s not a secret that Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) and its president Max Page have two obsessions: one is to the kill the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, the other is to win the legal right for teachers to strike in the Commonwealth.?The fight to cancel the MCAS is for the future. The right to strike is the topic grabbing the headlines now.

Earlier this week the?Boston Globe's Editorial Board?called on lawmakers to resist the Sirens’ call to change the law denying Page and the teachers the right to go on strike.??

The Globe made a point to differentiate between dedicated, hard-working teachers and administrators and the state’s largest union, which seems bent?on accruing enough power?to hold students and their families hostage with a comprehensive work stoppage. To its credit, the Globe questioned whether the right to strike is in the best interest of students.

Later in the week, Gov. Maura Healey told the Globe she did not support the MTA’s push for the right to strike, declaring she’s “not a fan” of the proposal. “While I have a lot of sympathy and want to make sure that ... educators are getting paid what they should for the important work that they do, it’s still paramount that our kids be in schools.” Healey has shown real leadership by putting student interests before that of the adults in the system. One can hope she will show as much when the conversation turns to preserving the MCAS.

Page didn’t like the Globe editorial board’s perspective, complaining to Contrarian Boston in an email that the editorial “obsessively focused on educator unions and completely ignored the role of the employer in bargaining.?The Globe failed to mention the interminable delays…designed to avoid good faith bargaining and rely on outside parties such as state mediators to settle contracts.”

Then Page blamed school committees for hiding behind high-priced union-busting lawyers. Apparently, high-priced pro-union lawyers at the MTA are different.

Page is holding out hope that he can change Healey’s mind and convince lawmakers to adopt his legislation to permit strikes. He may be thinking that a rope-a-dope strategy will win the day. “Our bill stipulates that a union could not strike before completing six months of good faith bargaining,” he told Contrarian Boston. That sets up the MTA’s ability to play the stall game they accuse other of, knowing that in the end, collective bargaining can set the table with their demands. Then they can use the nuclear option of a strike to get what they want anyway.

To Page, the right to strike is all about balance. “The legislation restoring the right to strike is crafted to prevent the crises that have led to strikes by balancing power at the bargaining table,” he writes.?However, Page’s definition of “balance” is having the right to strike, which, in turn, will somehow prevent strikes. And balance looks a lot like being able to keep students out of the classroom until you get what you want, without the influence of pesky third-party mediators in the room.

Of course, that sort of balance is grand if you believe that what is good for a labor union and its members is good for students. When asked how the right to strike will specifically benefit students, Page suggested that when the adults working conditions are good, then student learning conditions will be good as well.

“The right to strike levels the playing field in bargaining so educators can bargain for whatever learning conditions that their students need,” the MTA chief contends.?

Conditions for learning are one thing, actual learning is another. Page did not address the actual learning part of the question.

Since May of 2022, when Page took over the MTA, teachers in Woburn, Brookline, Malden, and Haverhill have gone on strike.

When asked if the MTA will be picking up the tab for the illegal actions taken by their members, or will leave it to local union members and their supporters in the communities in question to pick up the bill, Page offered up a nonanswer. “Individual MTA locals and members, in addition to community supporters, have been making contributions to local associations that have been ordered to pay fines,” he argues.?

That sounds like a “no.” Local teachers and their supporters, not the state’s largest union, will be paying for violations of the very law that Page and the MTA want to change.

It feels like this kerfuffle is all about power, but the teachers’ union is already very, very powerful. For some perspective as of their latest public tax filing: The MTA has a war chest of close to $100 million, annual revenue between $45-$50 million to fuel that war chest, 115,000 members, 376 employees, and senior management earning an average of $187,000 in base pay. Reports have indicated that MTA had invested close to $40 million to advocate for passage of the millionaires’ tax ballot question and was similarly active years back in the fight against increasing charter school options.

If you don’t think the MTA is already powerful, try to get anyone in business or education to offer constructive criticism of the organization on the record. Off the record, some will say that they keep their opinions to themselves to avoid risking the wrath and backlash of the union, its members, or pro-MTA politicians. Perhaps Healey’s position will inspire a bit of courage elsewhere.

Healey is standing up the MTA on behalf of students. So is the Boston Globe. Lawmakers should get on board too and reject the idea of authorizing teacher strikes, and soon.

Clarification: An earlier version of the story inadvertently implied that local governments might be fo