West Virginia Teachers’ Strike Ends After Reaching an Agreement

After a nine-day strike that kept West Virginia public schools closed, the West Virginia state legislature reached an agreement with the striking teachers on Tuesday for a five-percent pay raise.

Both houses of the West Virginia state legislature have passed a deal giving teachers and all state employees a five percent raise—one percent more than the Republican state Senate offered the teachers on Saturday. Union leadership called off the strike on Saturday, but when Republicans in the state Senate passed a version of the bill that only included a four-percent pay increase, the strike resumed.

West Virginia governor Jim Justice tweeted of the agreement today:

We have reached a deal. I stood rock solid on the 5% Teacher pay raise and delivered. Not only this, but my staff and I made additional cuts which will give all State employees 5% as well. All the focus should have always been on fairness and getting the kids back in school.

— Governor Jim Justice (@WVGovernor) March 6, 2018

According to MSNBC, this was the longest teacher strike in West Virginia state history. West Virginia teachers were among the lowest-paid teachers in country with an average salary of just $45,000, good for the 48th-lowest teachers’ salary in the nation.

Writer Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out one of the most illuminating things about this strike and what it says about the current state of education in America.

A lot of children depend on free school lunches, so the West Virginia teachers made food packages for them before going on strike and have continued to try to feed them. This is our dystopian welfare state: severely underpaid teachers trying to keep poverty-stricken kids alive.

— Barbara Ehrenreich (@B_Ehrenreich) March 4, 2018