Teachers delay call for strike

The leaders of the group representing Philadelphia's public school teachers said last night that they would not call an immediate strike, even though the city had just minutes before imposed a forced contract upon the 21,000-member union. Before a crowd of about 1,000 local teachers, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Ted Kirsch announced that while the union was upset with the actions of the mayor and the School Board of Philadelphia, a strike would only be called when it was deemed most beneficial to the teachers. "We have been in the classrooms and in the work areas, serving our children," Kirsch told the crowd of chanting educators and school employees in front of the Board of Education building in Center City. "And tomorrow, we will be back at our schools doing it again." "[The strike] is an option that we're not going to relinquish," he added. "We're going to utilize it when it's at our benefit. And we know that when we do it, it's going to be effective." The immediate possibility of a teacher's strike became likely Wednesday night when Mayor John Street announced he would recommend forcing a contract on the PFT if union and city officials were still unable to reach an agreement by 7 p.m. last night. City and union officials have been holding contentious contract negotiations for nine months. Benefits and the length of the work day are key issues of debate. Teachers continued to work over this month even though their original contract expired September 1. But with no success in the discussions yesterday, the Philadelphia Board of Education met at 7:30 p.m. and voted to immediately impose the mayor's terms. The move met with immediate disapproval from the PFT members both inside and outside of the board's meeting chamber. "I have sat with members of this board for many months," PFT chief negotiator Linda Harris said. "I think that you see through the resolve here that this is not the way to go." "Hitler and Stalin made hard choices, too -- and we've reaped the effects of their choices," PFT member Eugene Fitzgerald angrily told the board members. "How are you going to benefit from these hard choices?" While both union and board officials acknowledge that they differ on relatively few provisions of the proposed contract, those differences, they said, are tremendous. Among the terms that will be part of the new city-imposed contract are the extension of the teachers' work day to 7 1/2 hours -- a level that puts Philadelphia on average with other Pennsylvania school districts -- as well as a new system of seniority assignments and a 14 percent pay raise over four years. Union members loudly voiced opposition to the longer work day, and reiterated that their most crucial need was a new set of stricter guidelines for dealing with unruly students. "I think the school board's decision hurt us," Kensington High School teacher Alan Ozer said. "The only effect was to try to punish the teachers by making us stay an hour after school, taking away our benefits and cutting our pay for the time we're teaching." School board officials said that the forced contract was a necessary move and marked the first time in recent history that city officials were courageous enough to make a difficult decision in a time of great opposition. "In the past, we had failed to make the hard choices at the hard times," Board of Education President Pedro Ramos said. "This is the responsible thing to do." Protesting union members just outside the board's meeting room had a very different view. "I think Mayor Street stuck his foot in his mouth this time," Shaw Elementary School food service manager Carol Green said. "He put us against a wall and we're not going to take it." "I've been educating for 31 years -- I've done a good job for 31 years -- and I think it's a shame that [Street] doesn't show us the respect to at least come out and speak to us," Elementary School teacher Susan Phillips added. While the union can still call a strike at any time, state law requires at least 48 hours notice before it could take effect.