Posted: | March 22, 2013 03:16 PM |
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From: | Representative Will Tallman |
To: | All House members |
Subject: | Strike Free Education Act |
In the near future, I plan to reintroduce the Strike Free Education Act which Representative Todd Rock sponsored last session in the form of House Bill 1369. Within the past decade, the majority of teacher strikes nationwide have occurred in three states: Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio. In fact, from the 2000-01 school year to the 2010-11 school year there were 105 teacher strikes in Pennsylvania which interrupted and adversely impacted the learning experiences of more than 296 thousand students, and also had a negative economic impact on our local communities. Furthermore, our neighboring states of New York, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, and New Jersey do not allow strikes by any public sector employees, including teachers. In all, 36 states plus the District of Columbia prohibit strikes by public employees. The Strike Free Education Act repeals the current collective bargaining article, Article XI-A, in the Public School Code and creates a new article to address the collective bargaining process. My bill will be essentially the same as Representative Rock’s previous legislation with the addition of some technical amendments and a small change in the process for post school year negotiations, which replaces the transparency meetings regarding the ongoing negotiations that were mandated under HB 1369 with a requirement that updates regarding the ongoing negotiations be made available to the general public at the employer’s administrative offices and on the employer’s website. The highlights of the bill are as follows:
If you have any questions regarding this legislation, please contact Carol Hoffman in my Harrisburg office at 783-8875 or via e-mail at choffman@pahousegop.com. |
Introduced as HB1139