As soon as teachers walked off the job, State Superior Court Judge Clarkson Fisher issued a court order demanding that they return to work or face sanctions, which could include fines, jailing, and firings. "When it comes down to it, the union leadership and the membership are violating the law" by striking, said school board president Patricia Walsh.

"We will be requesting fines, jail, and if the circumstances are appropriate, that they be removed from their positions of employment," said school board attorney Douglas Kovats, according to the New Jersey Star Ledger.

"We will not be cowed," said Middletown Township Education Association (MTEA) president Diane Swaim in response. "We're sorry the board is using the courts to interfere with something that should be settled at the bargaining table."

And across the Hudson River in New York some 300 teachers at nine Catholic high schools also walked out November 29 in a dispute over wages and pensions.

"This strike is not just for High School North teachers but for all teachers in the Middletown district," said Claire Palamara. She was among some 200 striking teachers and secretaries walking the picket December 3 at Middletown North High School in defiance of a court order to return to work. The strike began November 29 in the face of massive media pressure to buckle under to demands by Monmouth County school authorities that teachers pay more for health benefits.

"This will set a precedent," said Palamara, if the teachers accept paying a percentage of their wages for medical care. While three school districts in Monmouth County pay a flat fee, "Middletown teachers have to pay a percentage of their wages toward health benefits."

Officials representing the 1,000 MTEA members say the major stumbling block to signing a new contract is the school board's demand that union members pay 12 percent of their premiums for medical insurance through payroll deductions, which would increase costs for the unionists by up to $2,500 a year. The MTEA wants to maintain a flat $250 annual fee that would cover family health care benefits. The teachers and secretaries already pay $1,400 in other deductibles. Other issues include pay raises and workload.

"Once they have their foot in the door we will be paying health benefits all our lives," commented a teacher on the picket line, a point of view shared by many other strikers.

The union has presented several counteroffers, including higher co-payments for prescriptions. Karen Joseph, a spokesperson for the MTEA, said the school board negotiators rejected these proposals and talks broke down. The walkout was their second strike in three years.

Despite constant harping in the big-business media, with comments from parents saying the teachers "make good money," some parents and their children have come to the picket line to support the strike. "I live here and I want my kids to have experienced teachers," said Joan Muso, an x-ray technician for 17 years who was on the picket line expressing solidarity with the strike.  
 
'We want to make a decent wage'
"We are parents too," declared striker Mel Clifford. "Some news media and some parents and taxpayers are sending our students the message that teachers are greedy and should be fired. When the strike is over, can they go back to telling our students to listen to their teachers and get good grades?"

Clifford was among a number of women on the picket line who said the strike was a "woman's issue." The school board was promoting an "old fashioned attitude" that "doesn't take teaching seriously as a profession. Teaching is seen as a woman's profession with unequal pay and unequal work. What is the uproar over our wages?" she pointed out.

"I'm a single parent," Clifford added. "I need to make a decent wage so that I can provide a decent living for my two children in the town where I live and work."

[On December 3 Clifford reported to the Militant that "four teachers were jailed tonight. The judge is trying to break us, calling people in one by one to answer questions and sign a paper saying they'll go back immediately or resign, and that negotiations won't resume until we go back.]

The teachers meet every morning to prepare for picket line duty and get updates on contract talks. The strike came a few hours after the end of a moratorium on contract negotiations both the union and the school board accepted after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.  
 
N.Y. teachers strike Catholic schools
Meanwhile, in New York Catholic high school teachers are waging a battle for a living wage and pension. The teachers walked off the job September 10, a few weeks after their contract had expired, but went back to work after the World Trade Center attacks.

The Lay Faculty Association, the union representing 377 Catholic teachers and guidance counselors, is demanding a 15 percent wage increase and a second pension plan financed by contributions from its members. The current pension program administered by the archdiocese is a pittance, teachers say. According to one union official, a teacher who worked for the archdioceses for 25 years would receive pension benefits amounting to $13,000 a year.

"We've been doing too much for too long, for too little," said Charles Chesnavage, a teacher at Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx.

"The teachers are real good," Brittany Jackson, a ninth grade student at Cathedral High in Manhattan, told the Militant. "They should be paid as much or more as public school teachers. And we should not pay tuition fees while they are not being paid."

Public school teachers are also demanding a pay increase, which provoked the ire of New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani who condemned their call for better wages and pension benefits as "unrealistic." He demanded the union "show some respect for the city for what it's going through in terms of the terrible attacks on the city."

Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, responded to the mayor's arrogance, saying he was exploiting the September attacks to evade the issue of higher wages. "When somebody caustically says that my members are not concerned about the city because we have the temerity to take the same position as we did before September 11--which is what we're doing--that's exploiting the tragedy."
 

Superior Court Judge Clarkson Fisher jailed 131 more striking teachers, boosting the three-day total to 135.
 
 
Related article:
Free the teachers, back the strikers  
 
 
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