published in Radio Transcript Newspaper in late 1992 No Balls, No Strikes Act 88 Outlaws Controversial Selective Strike Tactic This June, the state legislature passed Act 88 (Senate Bill No. 727), an amendment to the Public School Code of 1949 and Act 195. Act 88 outlaws selective strikes (strikes which target only a part of the district or which occur only on certain days), requires 48 hours be given before a strike can take place, and sets up a system of mandatory, non-binding arbitration. Also under Act 88, strikebreakers cannot be used to replace public school teachers, unless the replacements have been "actively employed by the school entity at any time during the last twelve months."       Both those for and against the bill agree that the outlawing of selective strikes is at the heart of the law. The Pennsylvania State Education Association PSEA) and Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers (PFT), the two unions who represent all of the state's teachers, disagree on the use of selective strikes during bargaining impasses.       The PFT, who oppose their use, represent the teachers in the cities of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Scranton, and a few outlying districts near those cities. The PSEA supports the use of the tactic and represents the rest of the state's teachers. In all, the PSEA represents about three times the number of techers the PFT does.       Selective strike tactics can include striking without giving notice to the school board, striking with part of the work force (e.g. one school in a district walks out or one grade level of teachers strikes throughout the district), striking by all teachers every third day, etc. According to Bernard Murray, assistant to the president of the PFT, these tactics were perfected in Pennsylvania in the early 1980s by the PSEA and never employes by the PFT.       "Selective strikes can save unions and teachers from losing money by not going on strike for lots of days in a row," Murray said. "We've always considered them too risky," because selective strikes threaten the welfare of children and curry the disfavor of the taxpaying public. Murray has been involved in every major PFT strike since 1975 when teachers were given the right to strike in Pennsylvania.       Ed Cristy, a teachers' representative of the PSEA, works with teachers' collectives in many suburban Pittsburgh area school districts. One of the districts Cristy serves, West Allegheny, is presently working without a contract. "Without selective strikes we have to change our strategies in negotiation and striking, but I can't say how losing them will affect techers throught the state," he said.       Cristy cited the 87 Pennsylvania districts still bargaining (110 have settled) and the two districts on a strike -- North Tioga in the Poconos and a suburban district near Philadelphia -- as evidence that teachers will take different paths to settlement under the new law, but can and will strike if necessary.       Last year at this time there was a rash of hard-fought strikes and contract negotiations between teachers' unions and Pennsylvania school boards. In the Pittsburgh area alone, three strikes were waged last fall: in Wilkinsburg, Deer Lakes and Peters Township. This school year, probably because of the Act 88 restrictions, there are only two strikes in the entire state.       Ronald Cowell, House representative of Wilkins Township (which includes Wilkinsburg) co-sponsored the Act. "I feel that selective strikes are inappropriate when you're talking about public school teachers and I said so during last year's strike in Wilkinsburg. This bill should reduce and shorten strikes." Cowell also pointed out that the state Secretary of Education can now enjoin (legally force) a teachers' union back to work if a strike goes on too long and a judge has refused to enjoin them.       Bernie Woodrow, current president of the Wilkinsburg teachers' group, said "I talked to Ron Cowell about this [Act 88]. We disagreed then and we disagree now. I think this law puts the teachers on an uneven playing field." Woodrow cited the 1982 strike in Wilkinsburg, which lasted 50 days, as being far worse in terms of having kids on the street. In Wilkinsburg, the strike of 1991 lasted six weeks, but students missed only 18 days of school because the teachers employed a selective strike.       Responding to the allegation that selective strikes curry disfavorwith parent, Woodrow said, "We had the support of the parents [during the selective strike] last year and we got close to what we wanted." Woodrow said his teachers' association would have preferred to have gotten binding arbitration in return for selective strikes. "School boards didn't want binding arbitration because arbitrators so often find for the union," he said, citing contract battles involving Pennsylvania's firemen and police, both of whom have no right to strike and must go through binding arbitration when they reach a bargaining impasse.       The Wilkinsburg teachers began their selective strike on September 25th last year in all three elementary schools, and the junior-senior high school after giving the school board a week's notice. Although most of the disagreement between the board and the teachers concerned salary, other issues included the length of the school year, an after school remedial program, paid preparation time, layoff provisions, disability and extracurricular payments.       The Wilkinsburg teachers were offered a total of $8950 in pay raises over three years. The teachers balked because the county average increase was over $10,100 -- "substantially higher" according to Barbara Bell, president of the Wilkinsburg Education Association.       On September 27th the teachers returned to work and Bell told Dr. Walter Watson, superintendent of the school district, that he would be informed at 9 p.m. each night whether or not the teachers would be striking the next day.       Four days later, Senator James Greenwood proposed a ban on strikes and binding arbitration with which both sides would have to comply, annoucing that "22,409 children [across the state] are watching television" instead of attending school. By October 17th, 47 days since the strike began, the teachers had actually struck only 10 days.       On Wednesday, October 23rd, at a monthly school board meeting, parents expressed frustration and the teachers picketed and passed out flyers claiming the board had turned down an offer they had made to enter binding arbitration to end the strike. On October 29th, the teachers walked out for the 15th time, one day before a state-mediated bargaining session. The day after the unsuccessful session, the teachers walked out again.       On November 4th, both sides announced they had reached a tentative agreement. Dr. Watson referred all questions at the time to William Andrews, chief negotiator for the school board. Andrews could not be reached for comment by this reporter.       By November 8th, the agreement had been signed. Only 18 days of school had been missed during the six week strike. A compromise figure of $9750 in pay raises over htree years was reached and disability payments and medical coverage were increased. The school year was lengthened one day.       If Act 88 were in effect last fall, the strike would have been considered illegal because the teachers walked in and out of work so many times. Under Act 88, teachers can only strike twice per school year, with each separate day of a selective strike counting as one complete strike.       "I helped write Act 88," Bernard Murray, assistant to the president of the PFT, said. "All the selective strikes that have gone on since the early '80sprecipitated a movement by the conservative side of Harrisburg to outlaw teachers' strikes altogether.       "There was a bill that the [state] Senate passed, written by James Greenwood, a conservative Senator from Bucks County. It was similar to the Act that police and firemen come under in that there's no right to strike at all. If there's a bargaining impasse that will suspend service there's what's called 'pure binding arbitration' where you go before an impartial arbitrator and he decides what's fair.       "The difference with Greenwood's bill for public school teachers was that a school board could rejec the arbitrator's findings if they didn't suit the board, but the teachers had no rejection power," Murray explained. The law in its present form includes Greenwood's mandatory mediation, arbitration, and fact-finding, in the hopes that it will make bargaining and strikes shorter, but it is non-binding,       Although Morray, Don Morbido from PSEA, and Tom Gentzel from the Pennsylvania School Board Association nominally wrote Act 88, it is really a bastardized form of Greenwood's original bill. Greenwood's bill passed the Senate 48-0, but was stopped in the House and rewritten. The revised bill then passed both the House and Senate.       Murray agrees that the long-term results are hard to predict. "Right now there's only two districts in the state on strike," he said. "I think everyone is still trying to formulate what they'll do under the new rules." Murray and the PFT feel public school teachers' right to strike is more secure now that it's limited to standard, non-selective strikes.