Make public-worker strikes illegal in Arizona
It is troubling that Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas seems to be the only public official worried about the precedent set by #RedforEd’s teachers strike.
I don’t agree with Douglas’ view that the state Board of Education should consider punishing striking teachers for unprofessional conduct. The circumstances involved in this particular strike were too messy for retroactive accountability.
School boards and administrators were in cahoots with the striking teachers, quickly closing schools rather than trying to keep them open. Hard to hold individual teachers accountable for failing to show up to teach at a school that wasn’t open.
Teachers intending to strike put in for paid leave time to which they were entitled. An argument can be made that doing so in concert to effectuate a work stoppage constitutes a violation of their contract.
But the assumption can’t be made that every teacher who put in for personal leave on a strike day did so as part of an orchestrated work stoppage. As a matter of due process, there cannot even be a presumption that was the case.
So, the state board, if inclined to consider retroactive punishments, would have to investigate, and hear evidence, about the requests of each teacher who put in for leave on a strike day.
Moreover, it is not crystal clear that what the teachers did was illegal. There is no state statute prohibiting publicemployee strikes in Arizona. There is a common-law understanding that unless granted the right to strike, public employees do not have one.
The case for state board disciplinary action relies on a tenuous legal argument that violating this common-law understanding constituted an implied breach of contract, which the board can treat under its regulatory authority as unprofessional conduct.
But even if this thin legal reed were relied upon, there’s no guidance for the board about what disciplinary action to impose.
Given the totality of the circumstances, and the need to conduct thousands of individual disciplinary actions with uncertain legal authority sure to be challenged, it is prudent to just let this strike pass.
Still, it is stunning that Douglas is the only public figure who thinks something should be done to prevent future strikes by ensuring that they have consequences.
Gov. Doug Ducey is Alfred E. Neuman on the subject: What, me worry?
Ducey treated the strike as a political problem to be navigated, not as a disruption of public order to be confronted and stopped.
He correctly opposes retroactive disciplinary action by the state board. But he appears indifferent to the precedent and the prospect of future public-employee strikes. He certainly hasn’t proposed anything to deter them by ensuring that they have consequences.
Public-employee strikes should be illegal. If a strike is called against a private employer, customers can continue to obtain goods or services from competitors. Government is a monopoly provider. If public employees strike, taxpayers relying on their services are out of luck.
Because of Ducey, this teachers strike was highly successful. It got teachers the potential for an 18 percent raise that otherwise wasn’t in the budget cards.
That will be a lesson learned, for teachers and other public-employee unions. Public-employee militancy is the bane of public finance throughout the country. There shouldn’t be such an open invitation to accelerate it in Arizona.
To stop that, the illegality of publicemployee strikes and their consequences for individual employees who engage in one have to be clear and irrevocable.
The Goldwater Institute has suggested changes in administrative rules by the state board that would make it clearer that, for teachers, participating in a concerted work action constitutes unprofessional conduct subject to discipline.
But that would apply only to teachers. It would continue to rely on shaky, and challengeable, legal grounds. And the consequences would be uncertain.
The best solution would be to get at the heart of the matter unambiguously: The Legislature should pass a law declaring public-employee strikes illegal. Violations would mean vacating the position and ineligibility for public employment for a period of time — say, three years.
Douglas’ angst should be more broadly shared.