President Swanson replies to attack on the right to strike

Dear Editor,

The Tribune’s Nov. 17 editorial “Block teacher strikes,” in which it is argued that the state legislature should ban school strikes, omits one highly relevant fact:

Giving Illinois school employees collective bargaining rights, including the right to strike, has resulted in fewer strikes and fewer school days lost as the result of strikes.

The Illinois Education Labor Relations Act (IELRA) went into effect on Jan. 1, 1984. In the nine years leading up to the passage of the act, school employees went on strike 221 times.

Since 1984, there have been an average of only 10 strikes each year, and in the last 10 years, Illinois has experienced only an average of five strikes a year in the 879 school districts across the state.

These numbers prove that, since employees have held the right to strike, that right has been used responsibly and only as a last resort.

Education employees know that the classroom is the best place for students to be to learn and grow, and they take the responsibility very seriously, as do school boards.

It also is unfortunate that the Tribune seems to believe parents are too dim to understand school budgets and that “they just want kids out of the house, off the streets and back in school,” so they pressure school boards to settle. That seems to us to be an elitist view of public education and the role of parents.

No one cares about our students more than the parents and guardians. These adults value their child’s education. They value their children’s teachers.

It’s worth remembering that the IELRA was passed by the legislature because lawmakers understood the importance of promoting “orderly and constructive relationships between educational employees and their employees” by allowing education employees the right to organize, choose who represents them, negotiate, bargain, enter into contracts and to protect those employees’ rights.

The Illinois Education Labor Relations Act is doing exactly what it was intended to do, and having the impact that it was intended to have.

The IELRA helps ensure fair bargaining, which leads to the negotiation of employee contracts that allow our schools to continue to attract and retain high quality teachers and staff, while keeping more students in their classrooms, learning and growing, exactly where everyone agrees they should be.

Sincerely,

Ken Swanson

President, Illinois Education Association