A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. The collective agreements reached by these negotiations usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.
The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union and the largest white-collar representative in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college students preparing to become teachers. The NEA has just under 3 million members and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The NEA had a budget of more than $341 million for the 2012–2013 fiscal year. Becky Pringle is the NEA's current president.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the second largest teacher's labor union in America. The union was founded in Chicago. John Dewey and Margaret Haley were founders.
The NASUWT is a TUC-affiliated trade union representing teachers, including headteachers, throughout the United Kingdom.
An academy school in England is a state-funded school which is directly funded by the Department for Education and independent of local authority control. The terms of the arrangements are set out in individual Academy Funding Agreements. Most academies are secondary schools. However, slightly more than 25% of primary schools, as well, as some of the remaining first and middle schools, are also academies.
The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is the labor union that represents most teachers in New York City public schools. As of 2005, there were about 118,000 in-service teachers and 17,000 paraprofessional educators in the union, as well as about 54,000 retired members. In October 2007, 28,280 home day care providers voted to join the union. It is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL–CIO and the Central Labor Council. It is also the largest member of New York State United Teachers, which is affiliated with the National Educational Association and Education International.
Randi Weingarten is an American labor leader, attorney, and educator. She is president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and a member of the AFL–CIO. She is the former president of the United Federation of Teachers.
Merit pay, merit increase or pay for performance, is performance-related pay, most frequently in the context of educational reform or government civil service reform. It provides bonuses for workers who perform their jobs effectively, according to easily measurable criteria. In the United States, policy makers are divided on whether merit pay should be offered to public school teachers, and other public employees, as is commonly the case in the United Kingdom.
A pay band is sometimes used to define the range (band) of compensation given for certain roles. The range is based on factors like location, experience, or seniority.
The Florida statewide teachers' strike of 1968 was a strike action in the US state of Florida in February and March 1968 by teachers and other education workers belonging to the Florida Education Association (FEA). The cause of the strike was under-funding of the state's educational system at a time when attendance was rising sharply, combined with low pay and benefits for teachers. The strike lasted from a few days in some school districts to three months in others. Although a special session of the Florida Legislature approved higher taxes to pay for more school funding, FEA members felt the funding hikes were not enough and voted to continue striking. No additional funding was forthcoming, however, and most local affiliates of the FEA settled their contracts and went back to work by March.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is a labor union that represents teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians in the Chicago public school system. The union has consistently fought for improved pay, benefits, and job security for its members, and it has resisted efforts to vary teacher pay based on performance evaluations. It has also pushed for improvements in the Chicago schools, and since its inception argued that its activities benefited students as well as teachers.
Tom Dooher is a teacher and labor union activist in the United States, and former president of the 70,000-member teachers union, Education Minnesota, AFT, NEA, AFL-CIO.
The National Association of Schoolmasters (NAS) was a trade union representing male schoolteachers in the United Kingdom.
The 2011 Wisconsin protests were a series of demonstrations in the state of Wisconsin in the United States beginning in February involving as many as 100,000 protesters opposing the 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, also called the "Wisconsin Budget Repair bill." The protests centered on the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, with satellite protests also occurring at other municipalities throughout the state. Demonstrations took place at various college campuses, including the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. After the collective bargaining bill was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court on June 14, the number of protesters declined to about 1,000 within a couple days.
In February 2011, a series of public employee protests began in the United States against proposed legislation which would weaken the power of labor unions. By March, eighteen states had proposed legislation which would remove some collective bargaining powers from unions, along with another five states which proposed legislation which would negatively affect unions. The protests occurred when public employee unions mounted protests against legislation proposed by Republican governors such as Scott Walker (Wisconsin), Rick Scott (Florida), Mitch Daniels (Indiana), Sean Parnell (Alaska), Rick Snyder (Michigan), John Kasich (Ohio), Paul LePage (Maine) and Jan Brewer (Arizona) which, among other things, would strip public employees of some collective bargaining rights as well as require higher employee contributions to pension and health care plans. The governors stated they needed these changes in order to cut state spending and balance the states' budgets. The protests began in Wisconsin, then spread to Indiana and Ohio, with unions around the country rallying to show their opposition to the proposed legislation. Several other states considered similar legislation. Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas prohibit formal collective bargaining with public employees.
Mark Allen Brody is a Wisconsin-born Republican member of the North Carolina House of Representatives. He has represented the 55th district since 2013.
Kevin Courtney is a Welsh former school teacher, and the joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, the largest teachers' trade union for England and Wales.
The West Virginia teachers' and school personnel strike began on February 22, 2018 with a call from the West Virginia branches of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, and the West Virginia School Service Personnel for school employees across West Virginia to strike. The strike, called in response to anger among teachers and other school employees over low pay and high health care costs, involved roughly 20,000 teachers and public school employees and shut down schools in all 55 West Virginia counties, affecting some 250,000 students. It lasted until March 7, 2018.
The 2019 Chicago Public Schools strike was a labor dispute between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union Local 73 that lasted 14 days. The strike began on October 17, 2019 when both unions failed to reach a contract agreement with Chicago Public Schools over compensation, benefits, staffing, wrap-around services such as counselors, nurses, and librarians, and caps on class sizes. On October 31, the strike officially ended when the mayor and the Chicago Teachers Union reached a tentative agreement allowing students to go back to class on November 1, 2019. The agreement included millions of dollars dedicated to reducing class sizes, hundreds more social workers, nurses and librarians, and a 16 percent salary increase over the coming five years, but did not achieve all the main goals of the unions.
