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Haverhill teacher strike ends, classes to resume Friday
"Without teachers, our schools cannot safely function."
Students in Haverhill are set to return to classes Friday after officials announced the end of a labor dispute that closed schools for four days.
Haverhill Public Schools made the announcement late Thursday night in a Facebook post. Earlier in the evening, Superintendent Margaret Marotta announced that classes would be canceled Friday, and that one area remained in dispute despite a series of agreements.
Talks were still ongoing around 8 p.m. Thursday, when hundreds of people protested outside Haverhill City Hall as negotiations continued inside.
“We have a deal. After many hours of negotiation and back and forth we were able to strike a finalized deal very recently,” said Scott Wood, chairman of the Haverhill Teacher Negotiating Committee, according to WCVB.
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Since the deal was struck so late, and the school community was initially told classes would be canceled, there will be no bus service for Haverhill students on Friday.
In addition, students can report at any time and those that do not show up will be excused.
“With this contract we won a financial package that represents a substantial investment in our public schools, closing a damaging wage gap between Haverhill educators and educators in other districts. We won language that addresses students’ safety. We won language to develop a more diverse teaching force,” Haverhill Education Association President Tim Briggs said, according to WCVB.
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The Haverhill School Committee and the Haverhill Education Association met Thursday for a sixth straight day of mediated talks, Marotta said. The two sides reached a series of agreements, but one area still remained in dispute. She did not clarify what issues remained unresolved.
In total, students missed four days of classes. All of the missed school days will be made up, Marotta said, as Massachusetts law requires 180 days of student instruction.
State law also does not allow public employees, including teachers, to go on strike. The school committee in Haverhill worked with the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board to secure a temporary restraining order on Monday. The order required the teachers to end their strike and return to work. Following a hearing on Tuesday, Judge James Lang issued an injunction further ordering the teachers back to work and ordering union leaders to stop encouraging any activity promoting the strike.
Lang informed the HEA and the Massachusetts Teachers Association that they would each have to pay an initial $50,000 fine, as well as fines of up to $10,000 a day, Boston 25 reported.
“Obviously, there’s a financial impact. But there’s also a psychological impact. A court has ruled against the union’s actions here. And now they are enforcing some pain in their direction,” Haverhill School Committee Attorney Dave Connelly told the station.
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Union leaders and school committee representatives made significant progress Wednesday, the HEA wrote in a Facebook post, but district negotiators “would not codify language that guarantees a system of transparency for teacher and student safety.”
HEA President Timothy Briggs said that the talks were trending in the right direction on financial terms, but student safety remained a sticking point before Thursday’s breakthrough.
“It is evident by what we’re addressing that what we’re doing is the right thing, because while we have a tentative agreement on money, we don’t have any agreement on language to keep students safe,” Briggs told reporters outside the union’s headquarters Wednesday night, according to video from WHDH.
School committee member Scott Wood said Wednesday that the committee accepted HEA’s financial proposal totaling $25 million.
“We believe this contract will put the Haverhill teachers on par with teachers in similar urban school districts,” Wood said in a video posted by WHDH. “We still remain stuck on language related to administrative processes.”
Last Friday, teachers in Haverhill and Malden both overwhelmingly voted to go on strike if contract negotiations were not successful over the weekend. Talks in both cities stalled out, and two strikes began Monday.
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Teachers in both cities said that they were fighting for higher pay, a safe working environment, educator-directed planning time, and smaller class sizes.
The statewide Massachusetts Teachers Association supported both striking unions.
“We must continue to be in solidarity with our union siblings in Haverhill, who remain without a contract, as they fight for fair pay, a diverse education workforce and safe schools for educators and students,” MTA President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy said in a statement Tuesday.
The Malden School Committee and the Malden Education Association reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract on Monday night, ending that strike after one day. The union voted Wednesday to ratify a new three-year contract with the school district.
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