A More Militant Mood

In New Jersey last week, two women teachers spent seven hours in a county workhouse; a male teacher and a national representative of the American Federation of Teachers were handcuffed together, mugged and jailed. They were among eleven educators found guilty of contempt of court for leading a two-week teachers' strike in Woodbridge Township. They thereby acquired the dubious distinction of becoming the first school workers ever to serve time as a result of a teachers' strike.

The jailings symbolized the mounting militancy of U.S. teachers as another season of contract negotiations approaches. Despite existing laws against public-employee strikes in almost every state, a score of teacher walkouts have already taken place this year, and more are certain to take place as negotiations heat up. By contrast, in all of 1960-61 there were only three such strikes.

More Men. One reason for the new militancy is that, while salaries in grade and high schools have risen spectacularly over the past decade (from an average of $4,239 to $6,821), teachers still earn far less than many workers of comparable training and less responsibility. During the same period, the number of men in public-school teaching has risen from one-fourth to one-third. Today, says Ralph Paul Joy, an assistant director of the National Education Association, teachers are too aroused merely to present a "timid, trembling salary request on ditto paper" and hold meetings merely for "the passing of the gavel and the pinning of the orchids."

Another impetus to aggressiveness is an intensifying rivalry between the pugnacious A.F.T., a 130,000-member trade union affiliate of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and the N.E.A., a self-styled professional organization whose 987,000 members include administrators as well as teachers. Tracing its origin back to the creation of the Chicago Teachers Federation in 1897, the A.F.T. was for most of its history one of organized labor's less effective branches. Teachers generally felt superior to a blue-collar approach, and the union itself was rocked during the '30s by Communist infiltration, which was eventually eradicated. Under the 1952-1964 presidency of Carl J. Megel, membership grew from 39,000 to 100,000. The union's biggest local, New York City's United Federation of Teachers, contributed to its expansion by successful strikes in 1960 and 1962 that coaxed up to 20,000 public-school teachers out on strike --and won them handsome pay boosts.

Cajoling Legislatures. The successes of the A.F.T. are rapidly pushing the 110-year-old N.E.A. into a tougher stance of its own toward improving teachers' salaries and working conditions. Organized primarily by professors of education, the N.E.A. has long been dominated by its principals and superintendents rather than by its teacher membership, and A.F.T. officials sneer at it as a "company union." Traditionally favoring discreet pressure rather than open protest, the N.E.A. has done its most effective work at the state level, where its sophisticated lobbyists have cajoled legislatures into sharp increases in state school aid.

Currently, both organizations are pushing hard for the right of teachers to negotiate group contracts with school boards. The A.F.T. calls this "collective bargaining," while N.E.A. prefers the term "professional negotiations"--and the difference is indicative of how the two organizations tend to operate. In the Woodbridge dispute, where both competed to make demands on a harassed school board that spends only $476 yearly per student, the A.F.T. hit the streets with picket lines. The N.E.A. was content to employ "sanctions"--mainly a public warning that other teachers should stay away from jobs in Woodbridge. But while the N.E.A. generally prefers the soft-sell censure, some of its associations are now adopting the blunter A.F.T. tactics. Within the past year there have been teacher strikes by N.E.A. branches in Flint, Mich., and Fort Wayne, Ind., although the work stoppages were euphemistically described as "withdrawals of service."

Pupils First. Not all educators approve of the trend, and about half of the nation's 2,000,000 teachers belong to neither the N.E.A. nor the A.F.T. Some dislike high-pressure tactics; others wonder about the ethics of letting teachers coerce decisions traditionally left to taxpayer-elected officials. New York State Education Commissioner James E. Allen Jr. considers teachers' strikes a "violation of professional obligations," and insists that "schools exist to serve the needs of pupils, and the pupil must at all times come first."

Teachers' organizations reply that their tough bargaining improves teaching quality and conditions, and thus ultimately benefits the pupils. Education, they argue, profits when teachers are strong enough to insist on the elimination of needless paperwork and administrative trivia. The schools gain, too, when young teachers with fresh ideas about education insist on being heard. But as many neutral observers of U.S. education point out, bargaining must be a two-way affair; the schools will suffer if the professional organizations focus narrowly on teachers' personal welfare, rigidly defer to seniority, or protect incompetents. Administrators have a right to demand high performance for higher pay--and strong teacher organizations have an obligation to deliver it.

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