For Throw Back Thursday, an old picture (probable photo credit to the late Curt
Kenner, passed on to me by the late Richard Sharp, and that's two too many “lates” for my liking) of me being interviewed by Betsy Bruce (who, incredibly, is still
working). It was, for the record, one of the worst
interviews of all time, and if any other record exists I hope it never sees the
light of day. Just the memory of it is embarrasing enough. I would have had to improve to make it up to awful. Thankfully, it never aired. Before that school
year ended, however, I was giving (radio) interviews almost in my sleep for the
early morning broadcasts. Key: ignore the actual question and answer what you really wanted the reporter to ask.
This came to mind as I read an article
about Marshawn Lynch’s tactic to avoid being fined by the NFL prior to the
Super Bowl last weekend. (See: http://theweek.com/articles/536184/subversive-brillianceof-marshawn-lynch
) “Work to Rule” is an old tactic, although at Hancock in 1973 we called it
“Work to Contract.” I’ll leave it to others to debate whether it was a
reasonable, fair, or even effective tactic, although teachers were definitely
frustrated and felt like we had to take a stand.
Among other issues, like frozen salaries, we were protesting the attempted elimination of personal leave. I
think there were others, but that was the flash point I remember. Jim
McLaughlin and I were selected to meet with a subgroup of school board members
to try to work out a compromise. We meet weekly in the evenings for at least a
month and finally reached an agreement. However, the school board, I
specifically remember Earl Meuhlfarth, Berlina Green and Art Hartman as the
prime recalcitrants, and Superintendent Veryl B. Young rejected the agreement,
giving momentum to a period of labor strife that lasted for several years.
There were two daily newspapers back
then, and a (sympathetic) reporter for the St.
Louis Globe-Democrat once told us, “Just call me when you go out on strike.
The story is already written, I just need to plug in the dates and new
information.” That’s how inevitable such an action seemed.
But that October we were certainly not
at that point; the grievances had not yet accumulated and we hadn’t done the
necessary planning and political groundwork. So the teachers association
(HPCTA) voted to “work to contract,” meaning, like Marshawn Lynch, we would do the minimum required, which meant we would not stay past the listed
hours for any “extra, uncompensated, duties.” As you might guess, students were
not happy to hear that whatever clubs or extra activities they participated in
would disappear until the dispute was resolved.
Politically, that did not include
sports teams, of course, because coaches were compensated via extra duty contracts. Although the action would have
been even more effective had sports been threatened, we would have lost the
coaches’ support, as tenuous as that seemed to be at the time (and, in
fairness, would have cost them the minimal money they made for coaching).
Student reaction was swift. They staged
a walkout that quicly brought the media to our front steps and pushed me in front of Betsy’s microphone. I have no knowledge that our students were actively encouraged by
teachers, but it would take a level of naivete beyond even mine to deny that the seed had at least been planted and, probably, nurtured. Certainly HPCTA was accused of working behind the scenes for such an outcome, with the
expected denials. In any case, there we were, making history with the first (to my
knowledge) student walk-out in St. Louis.
Things got worse before they got
better, but a new school board and superintendent, Roger Brodbeck, slowly
reached accomodations, and, eventually, even trust, with the union. That strike
story remains unwritten, although there were at least two last-minute
agreements in the next couple or three years to avoid that ultimate confrontation, but those are stories for
another time.
As evidence that even the teachers were
not completely on the same page in terms of what actions to take, I’ll share a
final story of how Jim McLaughlin and I split, temporarily, on our own stand.
Debbie Weissflug and I had been working to start a Drama Club. Not being a
sport, there was no question about us being compensated, of course. But Debbie and I came
up with a proposal that kind of made an end-run (another football reference to
tie in to the Super Bowl) around “work to contract;” we convined the school
board to issue us a contract that would pay us with a cut of the “profits” from
whatever play we put on. I’m pretty sure that play was You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Mac argued with me that we were
sabotaging the job action and undermining teacher unity. Being trained as a
lawyer, however, he recognized that technically we were also following the “letter
of the action.” I’ve always loved irony. And I don’t remember getting any money.
