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And just like that the Dallas teacher strike is over.
Residents endured a month of acrimony, and Thursday’s negotiation session showed no promise. The union insisted it had presented a valid case, the district begged to differ.
Along with repeating the claim that there isn’t enough money to pay what the union proposes, District Solicitor Vito DeLuca accused the union of conducting an illegal strike.
“They’re in defiance of Act 88,” he said bluntly, referring to the state law that lets teachers strike twice in one school year, provided the first strike ends in time to have 180 school days by June 15 and is followed by non-binding arbitration.
The state had determined teachers should return to work Dec. 13. Union lead negotiator John Holland insisted the board had nullified that calculation by announcing a change in the last day of school, so the strike continued.
Holland echoed the claim Thursday evening. Yet by 1 p.m. Friday, the teachers had agreed to return to work Monday.
What happened to prompt such a fundamental change?
The official explanation from Holland was that “the teachers are concerned about their students and community, which is why they are returning Monday.”
And while the teachers surely are concerned about students and community — their daily delivery of free lunches to families for the last several weeks shows it — they could have returned any day since picketing began Nov. 14.
There are other reasons that likely will never surface, in the interest of keeping peace.
The reality is that unions are made of people in different situations. When a teacher strike — or any strike — lasts too long, solidarity can fray, often along lines of longevity.
Veteran teachers at the top of the pay scale can afford a longer stretch without income, and may have a deeper commitment to the organization that helped get them where they are. Newer teachers at the lower end of the scale may see household budgets get tight and question a hard stance that is hurting their families.
A strike stretching into Christmas can amplify such fissures.
It is reasonable to suspect pocketbook issues and a passion for their work prompted the union rank and file to buck leadership.
It’s also possible that, despite Holland’s insistence to the contrary, the union majority feared the strike was indeed now illegal. The school board never voted to change the last day of school, and without such official action, Holland’s argument for continuing the strike could have faced a tough legal challenge if the district pressed it.
Good teachers take their positions as role models very seriously, and it would be hard to return to a classroom where some students saw the top scholar as scofflaw.
The teachers are returning, and that’s a good thing regardless of the reasons. But this notion of stretching a strike beyond the date set by the state is unsettling. Dallas teachers — and teacher unions statewide — would do well to figure out how they got there, and learn to avoid it in the future.