{"id":12989,"date":"2012-09-13T13:05:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T17:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=12989"},"modified":"2012-09-14T10:51:33","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T14:51:33","slug":"why-florida-teachers-cannot-strike-the-way-chicago-teachers-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/09\/13\/why-florida-teachers-cannot-strike-the-way-chicago-teachers-can\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Florida Teachers Cannot Strike the Way Chicago Teachers Can"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sarah Gonzalez \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

Debra Wilhelm, Karen Aronowitz and John Tarka with the teacher unions in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties say they're wearing red to support Chicago teachers on strike.<\/p><\/div>\n

Teachers across the state are showing their support for Chicago teachers on strike — by wearing red.<\/p>\n

Florida teachers are not allowed to go on strike\u00a0because of collective bargaining<\/a> and because\u00a0Florida is\u00a0a right-to-work state<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teachers get to negotiate their contracts and working conditions, and in turn they cannot strike — it’s against the Florida Constitution.<\/p>\n

If they do, union leaders say teachers can be fired on the spot. And in the past, union leaders who organized any strikes or walk-outs have been fined and jailed.<\/p>\n

The strike that started collective bargaining in Florida took place in 1968 — when teachers were asking for better school conditions and a minimum salary of $5,000 a year.<\/p>\n

Florida’s 1968 strike is considered the first statewide teacher strike in the country.<\/p>\n

Now, teachers and educators throughout the state are wearing red to support Chicago teachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The presidents of the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach teachers unions coordinated their red outfits before they met in Miami Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Karen Aronowitz is president of the United Teachers of Dade. She says Chicago teachers are standing up for themselves, and their students.<\/p>\n

She says that includes fighting for better school building conditions.<\/p>\n

“Schools without air conditioning, schools that never received the proper materials,” Aronowitz said.<\/p>\n

“The general public sometimes just sees this as a money fight and it is not just a money fight. That is why we are wearing red. In solidarity.”<\/p>\n

The Last Teacher Strike in Florida\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1967, the Democratic-controlled Florida legislature approved a higher sales tax to increase public school funding. But the Republican Governor at the time,\u00a0Claude R. Kirk, Jr.<\/a>, vetoed it.<\/p>\n

Teachers throughout the state walked out.<\/p>\n

Courts ordered them back to their classroom, but hundreds stayed out for either a couple of days, or a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

In January 1968, the legislature held a special session and voted to raise taxes for school buildings and to increase teacher pay. But many teachers at the time didn’t think the funding increase was enough.<\/p>\n

In February, the Florida Education Association (which was not a teachers union, but an association) announced it would support Florida teachers if they went on strike.<\/p>\n

At the height of the 1986 teacher strike, 25,712 teachers — about 40 percent of educators in the state — walked out.<\/p>\n

Public support was low and the strike lasted just a couple of days in some districts and up to three months in others.<\/p>\n

But the strike paved the way for collective bargaining and teachers unions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teachers across the state are showing their support for Chicago teachers on strike — by wearing red. Florida teachers are not allowed to go on strike\u00a0because of collective bargaining and because\u00a0Florida is\u00a0a right-to-work state. Teachers get to negotiate their contracts and working conditions, and in turn they cannot strike — it’s against the Florida Constitution. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[166,685,684],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13061,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions\/13061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}