W. Virginia Teachers Vote to End Strike

Striking teachers across West Virginia voted overwhelmingly to return to classrooms today, ending an 11-day walkout over pay and benefits, union officials said Sunday.

A day after their union leaders gained a promise of cooperation from legislators but no guarantees of pay increases, teachers in 42 counties embraced the settlement by large majorities.

“We’re glad to be going back to our schools,” said Raleigh County Education Assn. President Marie Hamrick.

But some county union leaders, noting ruefully that teachers were under increasing legal and economic pressure to return to work, warned that the state has not heard the last of them.

“We will be monitoring the legislative session to see that they do deal with education issues,” said Taylor County Education Assn. President Debra Spadafore. “We voted to go back, but we don’t feel this matter is over.”

Results were unavailable Sunday night for voting in Hampshire, Marion and Wayne counties. Two counties, Jackson and Greenbrier, voted to return before the settlement was announced. Nine of the state’s 55 counties never went on strike.

West Virginia’s first teacher strike began March 7 and soon spread to most of the state.

On Saturday, leaders of the state’s two teachers unions urged an end to the walkout after legislative leaders said they would ask Gov. Gaston Caperton to call a special session addressing education needs.

The settlement does not specifically address teacher salaries, ranked 49th in the country, but calls for lawmakers and union leaders to work out a plan for improved pay and benefits for teachers.

State Supt. Hank Marockie on Friday told county superintendents to begin mailing certified letters to teachers ordering them to return to work or risk losing their jobs. The strike had been declared illegal by the state attorney general.

Teachers in several counties also faced back-to-work orders by Circuit Court judges.

Hamrick said Sunday that a back-to-work order in her county may have played a role in the teachers’ decision to return to work, but the need for a paycheck may have been a bigger factor.

“We have a lot of two-teacher families out there and single-parent families and it was becoming very difficult to keep losing pay,” she said.

“We’ve already lost eight days’ pay and that more than covers what we’re probably going to gain next year,” said Noel Napier, president of the Logan County Education Assn., which voted 108 to 41 to return to class.

“I don’t think anybody is satisfied really with the settlement that we got,” Napier said. “We feel that it was too little too late. But I don’t consider our efforts a loss. We went out with nothing and we’re going back with something.”