New Bedford
New Bedford hold first major strike among MTA locals in 1969
One teacher faced the prospect of teaching 32 first-grade pupils in a gymnasium that was to be shared with another class.
A nine-day strike by the New Bedford Educators’ Association in September 1969, just four years after teachers won the right to bargain collectively, was described in The Massachusetts Teacher as “a milestone in the history of education in Massachusetts.”
It was not the first teachers’ strike in the state: That occurred in 1966 in Lawrence, an AFT Massachusetts local. However, it was the longest teachers’ strike up until that date, and the first among MTA locals to impact student instructional days. (MTA Director of Field Services Frederick Lambert noted that, previously, “five communities had witnessed one-or two-day work stoppages of the ‘Professional Day’ variety.”)
The NBEA strike followed 22 frustrating months of bargaining and included members voting to boycott a “professional day” on Sept. 15, 1968. According to the MTA, money was not the major issue. Larger issues were seeking binding arbitration for resolving disputes and the teachers’ “deep resentment” against conditions in the schools, including chronic shortages of classrooms and supplies.
Seven labor groups in New Bedford supported the striking teachers. Comments from the public on local radio stations ran 10 to 1 in favor of the teachers, according to the MTA.
In the end, the teachers won “everything they asked for,” Lambert wrote, though at a cost: The teachers faced a $50,000 fine.
The battle was long and hard; the game was worth the candle.
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