Teacher Strikes In Washington Are Illegal, But Still Occurring In King ...

(The Center Square) – Washington state law establishes that teacher strikes are illegal, but they are still occurring in the Kent School District and may happen in Seattle Public Schools.

The Kent School District has had to delay the start of school for the 25,000 students as the Kent Education Association declared a strike seeking a contract that focuses on class size, caseload, mental health services for students and higher salary for educators.

The Seattle Education Association voted recently to authorize a potential strike as the contract between the teachers union and the district expires Wednesday.

However, a formal opinion issued in 2006 by Washington’s then-Attorney General Rob McKenna stated that “state and local public employees, including teachers, have no legally protected right to strike.”

Maxford Nelsen, the director of labor policy at the Freedom Foundation, says that is still the case today. However, the burden falls on the school districts to initiate legal action against teachers unions.

“In the past, what typically happens is a school district will seek a court injunction in the local county superior court, ordering the teachers back to work,” Nelsen said in a phone call to The Center Square. “That sometimes ends a strike, sometimes it doesn’t.”

To get an injunction, a district must show that the strike is hindering its operations and the students the teachers serve.

In the case of the Kent teacher strike, KEA’s contract prohibits strikes on penalty of termination.

The Kent School Board held a vote to allow a lawsuit against the union on Aug. 29. The board voted 2-2 for no decision to be made, keeping the strike and contract negotiations ongoing.

Nelsen says it's essentially unheard of for public employees to strike, except in the case of teachers.

“When it comes to students and families relying on public schools, at least the current majority of the legislature does not seem to care that teachers unions are able to shut down public education as they see fit,” Nelsen said.

Teacher strikes are illegal, but Nelsen says that the the teacher strikes still occur because the unions know the legal processes in the case of a school district filing a court injunction take time. Teachers also know they will not lose pay for going on a strike because the school calendar is relatively fixed for days missed because of the strike. 

For public employees that are not teachers, they risk losing pay if they strike, which Nelsen says is one reason why such strikes tend to be rare occurrences.

The last time Kent educators went on strike was in 2009, which lasted for 15 days. The school district sought an injunction, which resulted in a King County Superior Court judge ruling that the KEA be fined $1,500 a day with teachers being fined $200 a day if the strike continued.

The current Washington State Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.