Abstract

THE BEAT

The article focuses on several issues related to wages of teachers in the United States. Washington State teachers got a bitter civics lesson this spring, as legislators refused to implement fully plans to reduce class sizes and increase pay for teachers that were overwhelmingly endorsed by voters in statewide referendums last fall. Washington Education Association members responded with a May Day lesson of their own: More than 5,000 teachers, classroom aides, bus drivers and custodians walked out of Puget Sound-area schools in protest. Their one-day strike was followed by walkouts in school districts across the state, and union officials say mounting anger could escalate to statewide action. The Harvard Living Wage Campaign sit-in has focused national attention on the burgeoning movement to pass ordinances that lift pay rates for public and nonprofit workers above the poverty level. More than sixty local governments and school boards have enacted living-wage ordinances, according to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Living-wage campaigns are currently under way in more than seventy-five other communities where local unions working in coalition with church and student groups have begun organizing mass rallies to press for city action.