Vol. 74/No. 17      May 3, 2010

More than 6,000 of the 21,000 Miami-Dade County teachers didn’t show up for classes Monday, April 12. Thousands of students left school early or staged protests in the middle of the day. At some schools most of the students dressed in black to show support for the teachers.

Hundreds of students from New World School of the Arts left school and marched through downtown Miami. At the end of the workday more than 1,000 teachers and their supporters gathered in the rain at Tropical Park in Westchester.

These protests along with many others throughout the state over the following days forced Crist to veto the legislation, known as the teacher pay bill. The measure would have linked teachers’ pay to student test scores and gutted seniority rights by eliminating tenure for all new hires. Passed in both houses of the Florida legislature, the bill limited contracts for new teachers to one year. If a teacher was deemed to need improvement for two out of five years his or her certification would be revoked.

Many teachers said their massive absence on April 12 was organized by rank-and-file teachers who spread the word throughout the school system. The United Teachers of Dade, the teachers’ union here, did not call for its members to stay away from work, but to demonstrate after work hours. According to Florida law it is illegal for teachers to strike.

Sophia Miller, a teacher for five years at Henry Filer Middle School, was part of a rally of 500 at the Miami-Dade School Board the day before the bill was vetoed. Senate Bill 6, she said, “is part of weakening the union. It takes away our bargaining rights and today, we need unions.”

Several students from Michael Krop High School were welcomed by teachers as they chanted, “Veto now” and “Kill the bill.” Rebecca Oliva and Francesca Martinez explained how students at their school had collected signatures on a petition in support of the teachers and that on the day teachers stayed away from their classes more than 1,000 students walked out at midday to press their demand for a veto.
 
 
Related articles:
Canada nickel workers strike stands firm after 10 months
U.S. gov’t seeks to placate anger over mine deaths  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home