Beverly Teachers Strike: Rally Planned; Calls To End 'Illegal' Strike
BEVERLY, MA — Beverly teachers planned a move from the picket lines to a rally at Lynch Park Friday afternoon on the first day after the Beverly Teachers Association voted to strike more than two months amid a negotiations stalemate on a new collective-bargaining agreement.
The public calls for support come as the Beverly School Committee called for an end to the “illegal” strike that School Committee Chair Rachael Abell said “unfairly disrupts the education of our students.”
Abell said the School Committee this week filed a petition with the Department of Labor Relations in an attempt to dissuade educators from the strike vote and, instead, use state third-party mediation to reach a deal.
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“The School Committee bargaining team is continuing to negotiate in good faith to reach contracts that are fair to all educators and staff and we urge the union bargaining team to work with the mediator and us to reach agreement,” Abell said.
Schools were closed on Friday — and will remain so for the duration of the strike — with school lunch provided at Beverly High School. The School Committee allowed the continuation of school sports, arts and theater programs, field trips and after-school clubs as long as there was proper supervision present.
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Gloucester teachers on Thursday joined Beverly teachers in declaring the strike, while the Marblehead Education Association on Friday scheduled a news conference following an emergency meeting that may also include a vote to strike.
With Monday being no school for Veterans Day, the next day of school closures would be Tuesday if no agreement is reached this weekend.
The BTA is calling for wage increases to become competitive with neighboring North Shore districts and reduce annual staff turnover, improved pay for paraprofessionals, longer lunch and recess for elementary students, paid parental leave and more support for increasing numbers of dysregulated students.
“Between the lack of support for our students and the poverty pay for our paraprofessionals, the educators in Beverly say enough is enough,” said Julia Brotherton, co-president of the Beverly Teachers Association, in a statement following the strike vote. “We have spent months in negotiations, and the School Committee has been dragging their feet. They refuse to agree with everything from our proposed extended lunch and recess for students to letting educators use
their earned sick time to take care of ill and dying family members.
“They refuse to find solutions to the turnover problem in our schools, which is impacting our ability to best serve our students. As educators and as a community, we need and deserve better.”
Beverly Mayor Michael Cahill in a letter to Patch this week insisted the city has bargained in good faith with the teachers with its current offer including $24.45 million in new spending over the three years of the proposed deal — a 25 percent increase in spending.
He said the offer amounts to a 27.2 percent increase in wages for teachers (inclusive of steps) and a 42.8 percent increase for paraprofessionals.
BTA co-President Andrea Sherman said in a statement released Thursday night: “Everyone knows
that Mayor Cahill and the School Committee forced us to take this action. It’s almost as if they were daring us to do this. Educators do not think our schools are a game, and we take our work very seriously.”
She added that the BTA is ready to bargain “around the clock” through the weekend in hopes of
reaching a deal “to fix the problems we all know are there.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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