School Workers Strike to Protest Chief’s Raise

Hundreds of teachers, bus drivers and lunchroom workers went on strike Monday, protesting a $30,000 raise for the city school superintendent at a time of meager pay increases for other school system employees.

Many of the system’s 75 schools were virtually empty as teachers picketed the school board office. School officials said 1,264 of the 2,100 to 2,200 teachers in the system were absent--as were about 30,000 of its 38,000 students. Despite the strike, about 60% of the system’s 4,300 employees showed up for work.

“We have spoken, and no one has listened,” Alabama Education Assn. leader Paul Hubbert told a meeting of about 500 educators. “Today is the first time we have been listened to.”

Teachers in Birmingham lack collective bargaining rights and do not have a contract. Hubbert said there is nothing in state law that says whether teachers can strike. But a 1958 advisory opinion from the state attorney general said that teachers cannot legally strike and that school boards may file suit to force strikers back to work.

Birmingham Education Assn. President Gwen Sykes conceded that the work stoppage was probably illegal. “We could face some problems because of it,” he said. “But we are willing to go through that.”