Springfield

Twenty-seven Springfield Education Association members were incarcerated in a strike that lasted 14 school days in the spring of 1980. Fortunately for them, Judge John Murphy said he did not “want them exposed to a regular jailhouse atmosphere,” so they were sent to the 660-acre Monson Developmental Center, a residential treatment facility. The teachers praised their jailers for their humane treatment despite the stress and uncertainty associated with being arrested and detained. They also faced other risks, including loss of pay and the threat of being fired.

Determined to reopen the schools, the district tried to hire $75-a-day substitutes, whom the teachers called “scubs,” but there weren’t enough qualified applicants for that strategy to work.

The bruising strike was over after a new contract was ratified. It included annual raises of between 6 and 6.6 percent, along with bonuses, improved pupil-teacher ratios, a sick leave bank, new layoff language and the district’s first-ever preparation time for elementary school teachers. Those teachers were given one 30-minute prep period a week in the first year of the contract and two in the second.

The final sticking point was the SEA’s insistence on no-reprisals language for striking teachers. The Springfield-Chicopee-Westfield Labor Councils of the Mass. AFL/CIO supported the SEA’s demand and, according to MTA Today, “promised to man the picket lines if large numbers of teachers were jailed.”

By the end, the SEA had accumulated fines of $230,000, in addition to fines of $500 each against 14 of the jailed teachers. It was the last time members of an MTA local were arrested for striking.