Strikes: “The reality is, that’s the one card we have,”

The forced-dues state of Pennsylvania has held this dubious title for many years.   Despite a law that imposes some restrictions on teacher strikes, monopoly bargaining allows teacher union officials to do what they please and emerge relatively unscathed. Maria Degnan, president of the Ringgold Education Association, admits a strike is the power that keeps teacher union officials in business.  Mike Tony has the story in the Herald Standard.

A recent study by the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based free-market think tank, found that Pennsylvania has had 131 teacher strikes since 1999, leading the nation and affecting 300,000 students.

The Commonwealth Foundation noted a 2012 Mother Jones study that found that nearly 90 percent of teacher strikes in the previous four decades had happened in Pennsylvania.