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March 19, 1999
For more information, contact
Barb Brady, WEAC Press Secretary
800-362-8034, extension 239
The conditions that created Wisconsin’s most famous and bitter teachers’ strike 25 years ago today are not much different than conditions educators face in 1999, according to the president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
“Twenty-five years ago, teachers were dealing with unfair state laws that disabled the collective bargaining process and caused employers to behave arbitrarily,” WEAC President Terry Craney said. “Those laws led to a series of teacher strikes, culminating in Hortonville in 1974, where teachers from throughout the state walked the picket line to support 84 colleagues who had been fired for engaging in a job action.”
Craney said state-imposed school district revenue controls and the Qualified Economic Offer law are creating a climate similar to the one that prompted educators to engage in job actions 25 years ago.
“Teachers’ voices are once again ignored at the bargaining table,” Craney said. “The QEO law unfairly singles out teachers and destroys their collective bargaining rights. Revenue controls are forcing school districts to make painful decisions to cut or reduce programs that affect the quality of education in their schools. Employers are hiding behind the law rather than bargaining.”
Craney said teachers are becoming increasingly frustrated the longer the laws remain in effect.
“These laws need to be repealed,” he said. “The Hortonville strike highlighted the unfairness of the laws in the 1970s and led to the Legislature adopting a bargaining system that worked well until the QEO was imposed in 1993. Now we need a new legislative solution to correct this unjust situation of the 1990s.”
Posted March 26, 1999