A strike by staff at the nation's largest teachers union has prompted President Biden to cancel his Sunday speech in Philadelphia, where he was scheduled to address thousands of delegates at the union's annual convention.
The National Education Association staff union began a strike Friday, citing management’s cancellation of overtime pay for the Fourth of July and its refusal to provide information about $50 million in outsourced work that may have previously been done by NEA staff. The strike has stalled the last three days of the four-day convention because delegates refused to cross a picket line.
Mr. Biden’s campaign said he would not do so either. “President Biden is a staunch supporter of labor unions and he will not cross a picket line,” his campaign said in a statement, adding that the president still planned to travel to Pennsylvania over the weekend.
The National Education Association has about 2.5 million members nationwide, not including retirees, according to a recent government filing. The employee union says it represents more than 350 workers assigned to the union’s Washington headquarters.
The union, the National Education Association Staff Organization, voted in April to authorize a strike, and the three-year contract expired in late May. A one-day walkout was held in June. “NEA has abandoned its union values with its actions at the bargaining table,” union president Robin McLean said in a statement. “NEA would rather cancel a multimillion-dollar convention than comply with labor law.”
The NEA said in a statement that it “remains fully committed to a fair bargaining process” and accused the employee union of spreading “misinformation” that “not only misrepresents the facts, but also undermines the integrity of our ongoing efforts to respect a fair bargaining process.”
The union added that the association offered generous benefits and competitive salaries, and said the current proposal would increase the average salary of union employees from about $124,000 to about $133,000. The staff union said salary increases have been lagging for years and that most members would see an increase of less than 2 percent per year under the proposal.
Union strikes are not unheard of. Workers at the United Food and Commercial Workers Union held a one-day strike in May. Staff at a major local of the Service Employees International Union in California held a two-week strike in 2022.
