Striking Teachers Have Reasons

¶ … Teachers' Strikes There are a couple of different ethical issues that underlie teacher strikes. Perhaps the most fundamental of these pertains to the education of the children, who will inevitably suffer during any sort of teacher strike. Granted, the degree to which these children's education will suffer is somewhat mitigated by the fact that substitute teachers typically replace teachers for the duration of a strike.

Still, the familiarity that teachers have with their students, as well as the mastery of the former's knowledge of the lesson plans and of the general education plans for the class for the year cannot suitably be replaced by substitute teachers. Thus, the ethical issue surrounding the students during a teacher's strike is whether it is truly acceptable to compromise the education of students and their "health, safety and welfare" (Blume, 2009) in order to better suit the needs of the pedagogues.

Adding to the ethics involved in this issue is that for the most part, the students are largely innocent of any sort of grievances that the teachers have -- which are generally aimed at the administration, the school district, and the powers that supply funding at a state, county, or even federal level. These grievance may be about "labor politics" (Shuffleton, 2014, p. 22).

I believe that the best way to resolve this particular ethical issue associated with teacher's strikes is to prepare the substitute teachers in a way that that they are rarely prepared to take over instructing classes. School districts should accommodate the payment of these instructors prior to strikes to learn about the sort of education and lesson plan that teachers have in progress. Additionally, substitute teachers should be rigorously evaluated and either replaced or kept based on the results of those evaluations.

This latter measure, of course, will not require additional funding and is a safety measure to help guarantee that students are still getting the sort of educations they deserve in the wake of a school strike. Another immensely important ethical issue pertaining to teacher strikes relates to those that would "cross picket lines if necessary" (Blume, 2009) in order to teach students. The ethics of this issue are also related to the concept of unions and union membership. Many public school employees are part of labor unions specific to their profession.

From an extremely pragmatic view, labor unions depend on solidarity and widespread membership, in addition to unified action, in order to maintain hegemony and improve labor conditions for their employees. Teachers who choose to cross picket lines have to contend with the ethical reality that their actions are also impacting others -- both the children they are attempting to teach by going across picket lines and the others who are striking in protest of labor conditions.

Thus, they must determine if the good that they produce by crossing a picket line for their students negates the good they could produce by engaging in the strike and assisting their fellow teachers. This particular quandary actually resonates at the core of ethical issue that teachers encounter with a strike -- whether or not their loyalty should go to their students or to their fellow instructors. One could resolve.