Recent diseases by bus drivers and employees of other public school systems in Durham are the latest front of state and local government employees to emphasize for better salary. And the effort is attracting the attention of the state MPs, inviting the discussion on the future protest strategy to ban.
Beyond the closure of public schools in Durham for at least four days in this month, the sick have also highlighted significant strategic differences among groups that advocate public employees. It also holds a spotlight on a national trend of labor functions in the regions – in 2023, a strike, recession, or other strategy from national unions representing actors, airline pilots and autovers, as well as the workers in cities of Los Angeles from Charlotte from Darham. Last week, drivers went on strike across the country on Valentine’s Day for Uber and Lift.
Like most other states, going on strike in Northern Carolina for government employees is punishable by rape. And there is a debate on whether diseases in Durham have technically formed a strike – a point that can have statewide political importance in this year’s elections.
The state law prevents state or local government employees from preventing or slowing down as a means of implementing “demand for demand on employers”. Under the leadership of the organizers, Durham Association of Educators and North Carolina Association of Educators in Durham, he has carefully abstained from the use of the word “strike” in describing their efforts, and some boys on “sick” prefer to “protest day”.
Despite the vocabulary, he has discussed openly shutdown as a means of advancing his demands on salary for assistant employees such as bus drivers and maintenance technicians. And they won a win on Thursday night when the school board voted to form a committee made of school officials and employees to overcome the demands, in which the workers got most of the seats in the committee.
A sickness referred to the workers banding together to call a sick N-mask. The thinking among the organizers is that the employees are legally entitled to take a sick day. Does coordinating sick days between employees do wrong things, this is the point of debate.
The sick have faced legal challenges in states such as Wisconsin and Nevada. But he has been seen as a work -chamber in Northern Carolina for government employees, with some arguments that “strikes” have similar effects under law.
The state’s largest lobbying group for public school workers, NCAE, sees the sickout – although it does not use the term – as a remedy for the final resort, but one that can be used for great effect when necessary.
The group president Tamika Walker Kelly said, “NCAE supports teachers, which is a voice in decisions affecting our schools and our children’s education.” “The best and least disruptive method for a voice for teachers will be to overturn the ban on collective bargaining for the state legislature. Protests should be a final measure, but it is how many teachers are now feeling.”
The most notable opposition to the organization occurred when an estimated 20,000 teachers around North Carolina called the sick out the same day in 2018, in which thousands of March was on the State Legislature to oppose low salary.
But some advocates worry that this is not a productive long -term solution.
Pro-Labber protests are unpopular with orthodox politicians, leading the State Legislature since 2011. Ardes Watkins, who leads the State Employees Union of Northern Carolina, said that Scene had decided that the state MLAs were asked to discuss with the state MLAs with the Republican leadership, instead to encourage the workers of the state to encourage the workers. She is standing with that strategy, the credit for being built in 2018 with North Carolina is the first state in the country to guarantee a minimum wage of $ 15-hour for almost all state employees.
“When you sit on the table of a conference, you do more work,” Watkins said in an interview.
In politically progressive Durham, however, the protest strategy seems to be a successful: school workers have achieved much so far they are asking the county. This is after a similar action by the city’s Durham sanitation workers last year, who stopped taking garbage and recycling for a week. The next month, the city approved a bonus of up to $ 5,000 for all its employees.
- MPs change weight
- ‘D-facto strike’
- ‘A historical moment’
MPs change weight
In 2018, by increasing the minimum of $ 15 per hour for most state workers, excluding school staff, especially school staff, was seen by teachers as a political message with a thin veil of GOP MPs amidst protests of the public school of that year. And now a spotlight is shining on that strategy with Durham Sikouts, there is a new negotiation in the state legislature about the breakdown of diseases by government employees in the future.
“This is a subject that we have to look into,” State Rape John Hardister, R-Guilford, a member of the House GOP Leadership, told Wral. “Because at the end of the day it is about students. They need schools that are open and operated, for clear reasons. We want children to be able to learn and excel academically. And they cannot do so if schools are closed.”
Senate leader Phil Berger recently did not ban the sick, especially when asked about the issue, but he was important to get sick and the philosophy behind the school staff shut down schools in protest.
“I feel like they should be able to work and keep schools open,” he said. “I think the people working in the school system have a special responsibility to understand what they are really for – or who they should really be for. And it seems to me that people have lost attention as far as it is worried.”
Northern Carolina is widely considered one of the lowest labor-friendly states in the country; It has also been named the top state of the nation for businesses for the last two years.
However, the labor movement is collecting steam. Economic rebounds from Covid-19 epidemic have led to many new jobs and historically low-level unemployment, which gives more benefits to workers to demand. Northern Carolina is still one of the lowest federal states in the country, but in the last few months the state has voted for the workers in the hospital to hold unions for the first-time students of the grades of maintenance technicians, Starbucks Barisas and Duke University.
Since the 1940s, the Northern Carolina has been a “right-to-work” state with pro-business laws that largely defame labor unions. The Hardister proposed a constitutional amendment last year to implement the rules of the correct work in the constitution of the state-a step that would mold the anti-union position of the state with future court challenges, as well as make it difficult for future state MPs. Hardister filed the first state in decades in decades after that amendment, HB 614, Michigan, decades in decades.
The proposed amendment, however, did not move forward. Hardister said that since a lot was happening in the legislature last year-Sansadas passed lax gun laws and strict abortion laws, limited transgender rights and re-created several voting laws leading to 2024 elections-the push was not a priority. But he had a prominent co–producer at Rape Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, who has a comprehensive party support to become the next speaker of North Carolina’s house in 2025.
‘D-facto strike’
Hardister will not be in the Legislature in 2025. He is leaving to become the next labor commissioner of the state. If he wins that election, he said, he will have an even more threatening pulpit, which now does to carry forward the legislature for changes in labor laws, including possibly using diseases to use contradictions over government employees.
“I strongly support the rights of public employees to exercise my first amendment rights,” he said, “he said, echoing the law of the state that allows government employees to sound on grievances, unless it interfere with their duties.
“But it is illegal for them to go on strike, and it is essentially what they are doing,” said Hardister. “A sick is a real strike.”
Hardister has several challengers – Luke Farley, Chak Stanley and Travis Wilson – GOP Primary to replace Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson, a Republican who is not demanding reunion. Anyone who wins that a member of the primary Charlotte Municipal Council will face Democratic candidate Brexon Winston, who is also a supporter Labor and Black Live Matter Activist.
Winston says that the state needs more security for workers, not less. He said that state and local employees are funded by taxpayers and if they are happy, they provide better services, provide better services, better payments and low overwork, he said.
“This is difficult for public sector workers here,” said Winston, son of a teacher and a fire fighter. “… I think the last thing we should do is trying to find out how to ban or manipulate benefits.”
Winston pointed out the 2023 strike in Charlotte by bus drivers and other Charlotte Area Transit System Workers. While public employees are striking from the striking, Charlotte pays a private company to run his transit system. So those workers were allowed to go on strike-and when they did, they won the salary increase of a double-prone as well as more salaries for working nights and holidays, in addition to other concessions, WSOC-TV said at that time.
Winston said that he is following the situation in Durham and agrees that it is chaotic. But it would have been better, he said, if the county and its employees were not banned from interacting directly. In general, he said, if the Labor Commissioner elected to government workers, he would push for more labor change.
“Data shows that workers make more, business runs more efficiently, and work is secured in the presence of labor unions and organized workers,” Winston said. “We do not have a lot of disagreement when we do not have.”
‘A historical moment’
The organizers in Durham continue to work with the officials of the school system as they take more benefits with school leaders.
The direct collective bargain between government officials and workers is illegal in North Carolina – some Winston and NCAE say they want to see changes – but a school board vote on Thursday indicates protests to authorize a committee to authorize a committee on Thursday that the leadership is looking for a rapid proposal.
“It’s a historical moment that we are sitting around this table and in this conversation,” the school board chairman Bettina Umstead said in Thursday’s meeting.
It is not clear that Durham leaders consider using the threat of arrest under anti-strike laws to try to stop protests-or if the district could support legislative changes to crack such a strategy in the future. The previous Superintendent, Pascal Mubenga resigned under pressure earlier this month as salary defeat increased. Current school system officials on Friday did not immediately respond to Wral’s questions whether they have considered legal action to stop the sick or whether they support the law to prevent such a strategy.
NCAE president Walker Kelly said that his group and Durham organizers plan to emphasize for better salary and treatment – not only from local leaders but also from the State Legislature, which provides most school funding in North Carolina. And they have embraced their swelling rank; Hundreds of people have joined the Durham Association of Educators in the last one year, the group has said.
Walker Kelly said, “The dedication and flexibility of our public school teachers, bus drivers, school consultants and other education professionals should be appreciated.” “However, the state’s constant lack of funding is excluding teachers, while the student deteriorates the learning situation.”
Wral reporter Monica Casey contributed to this report.