Union’s bus shows up at Lake-Lehman as teachers end 1st full week of strike

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.timesleader.com/news/20071020_20lehman_strike_mg_1a_ART.html

By Mark Guydish [e-mail]
Education Reporter

LEHMAN TWP. – They came a little late, but the AFL-CIO still showed up Friday morning to support the Lake-Lehman teacher union as it finished its first full week of a strike that could last until Nov. 8.

That’s the date the state says the union would have to return to work for students to complete 180 days of school by June 15, but Union Spokesman Paul Shemansky said he believes the state miscalculated by five days, and that the union will bring the possible error to the state’s attention Monday. If the union is right, Shemansky said, the strike would have to end by Nov. 2.

The state made a second calculation to determine when the teachers would have to return in order to complete 180 days by June 30. That calculation – Nov. 26 - could also be off by five days, Shemansky said, but isn’t really important since the union intends to go back to work by the earlier deadline, which would force both sides to enter into non-binding arbitration. No strike would be allowed during that process, which would probably last into early next year.

The union knew nothing about all this when the AFL-CIO bus, initially expected at 10 a.m., pulled up about 40 minutes late. Despite that delay, it proved a hit once everything was set up, blasting the union anthem “Solidarity Rocks” as several speakers gathered on an open custom-made platform on the back of the 1987 school bus.

“We just had a strike,” Greater Wilkes-Barre Labor Council President Sam Bianco told the sign-toting teachers outside Lake-Lehman High School, “And what do you think the issue was? Health Care!” The teachers roared acknowledgment. Their strike is primarily over the school board’s push to have them pay part of their health insurance premiums.

Bianco, wiry and exuberant despite a drizzle that was slowly increasing in strength, said the effort by management to cut back health insurance benefits was wrong-headed, and the real goal should be to increase coverage for others.

FULL story & photo at link.