Burlington

Two years after the “Woburn Four” spent two days in jail for striking, the “Burlington Four,” all officers of the Burlington Educators Association, spent seven days in the Billerica House of Correction for going on strike and violating the court’s return-to-work order. The strike centered on the “lack of meaningful bargaining by the school committee,” according to MTA Today.

This strike, like many, was controversial in the community. Robert Fahey Jr., an Eagle-Tribune reporter, wrote on the Burlington Retro website that Burlington parents gathered 2,500 signatures on a petition calling for all striking teachers to be fired. The district also played hardball, calling in police reinforcements from neighboring communities in what one teacher described as a “blue tide.”

Despite tedious time in jail and other pressures, the teachers hung together. BEA President Jay Rutkowski described it as a “power struggle.” Finally, a settlement was reached in a “slam-bang” session mediated by Harvard Professor Archibald Cox. (The following year Cox was named special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal, and was fired by President Richard Nixon in what was dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre.)

The final contract in Burlington included a better pay raise than the district had been offering, a sick leave bank and several improvements in working conditions.