How could you write that entire article and not mention PEIA? PEIA is the core to the strike. It's like writing a piece on the Civil War and not mentioning slavery.
Here is a primer if you care. The core problem is that teachers signed contracts that promised certain benefits (PEIA). The benefits were in lieu of salary.
The state has then criminally underfunded PEIA for years, causing the fund to increase employee contributions, raise premiums, raise co-pays, and cut benefits.
All of this while not providing teachers raises. So their paychecks are not keeping up with inflation and are the lowest in the nation, all while more money is coming out of their paychecks to pay for the benefits they took in LIEU of pay.
So even if they get the 5% salary increase Justice promised, they will probably see no net gain in income because their "benefit" is costing them more money, and there is no guarantee they will even see the 5% because Senate Republicans aren't budging.
It is also EXTREMELY misleading and borderline criminal negligence to keep citing the average pay of 45k for teachers. That includes administrators and what not. I'd think journalists would have heard the terms mean, median, and mode before.
There are teachers who have a decade of experience and master's degrees who make 40k.
While the certification issue may have been the straw that broke the camels back, the CORE issue here is the criminal underfunding of PEIA.
The low salaries and repeated abuse from the legislature (villainizing teachers, changing cert. requirements, attacks on common core, etc.) are just a bonus.
For people who are actually interested in what is going on, there are lots of good reporters you can follow.
@jake_zuckerman
@RyanEQuinn
@PhilKabler
Talented folks at HuffPo labor and @alexnpress have been doing a good job aggregating
@jake_zuckerman
@RyanEQuinn
@PhilKabler
Talented folks at HuffPo labor and @alexnpress have been doing a good job aggregating
But this New Yorker piece reads like someone who is trying to make a romanticized Matewan out of this and is ignoring the core issue.
the end
also should add there are people who know a ton more than me about this and I will add them to this thread as I remember them.
Oh, I know something I need to add. The PEIA issue is ESPECIALLY crucial to serviceworkers, who are also on strike. What are service workers?
They are the cooks, the custodians, the secretarial staff, the bus drivers, etc. There are 20k teachers, and 13k service workers.
while the shitty "45k average salary" statistic is criminal negligence to use for the teacher salaries, it's even worse for the service workers.
they make far less. I don't have my hands on the data because I forget where i saw it, but like 22k for a secretary would be about what they make
And while for many of them, this is their sole source of income, a not insignificant number of service workers are in the job SOLELY for the health benefits.
Many of them are there for the benefitsm as they have a spouse who may work in another job that does not have health benefits.
So the only reason they are in the job is to supplement the family income and to provide health insurance.
Think someone who drives the bus, makes 15k a year, but also has a small farm they run.
Netflix's Milk Money episode of the docuseries Rotten had someone doing just this, albeit in PA.
But another example, a cafeeria worker who is ok with the 18k a year salary because they are married to someone who works a non-union job in a mine, brings home a respectable 20 bucks an hour, but has no benefits.
For them, PEIA is EVERYTHING.
God how do people with a national platform get to write things when they know nothing.
