Rob McKenna: Yes, it is illegal for Seattle teachers to go on strike

Seattle’s teachers will vote Thursday on whether or not to go on strike one week before classes are slated to begin.

But as KIRO Radio’s political analyst Rob McKenna says, the strikes are not only illegal, they have more to do with betting and politics than they do with contract negotiations.

Related: Seattle teachers are asking for five things

“As everyone knows from reading the news this time of year, the W.E.A. &#8212 the statewide teachers union &#8212 picks four or five districts around the state and targets them and says, ‘This is the year we are going to strike in this district,'” McKenna told Seattle’s Morning News. “For example, the teachers walked out in Pasco earlier this week, as well.”

Seattle’s teachers are meeting with union representatives Thursday afternoon. The Seattle Education Association represents approximately 5,000 staff members. School is scheduled to start on Sept. 9.

Teachers demand that the Seattle School District:

&#8226 increase teacher pay

&#8226 guarantee student recess

&#8226 improve teacher evaluations

&#8226 de-emphasize student testing

&#8226 address disproportionate discipline

“The teachers have a strategy of going out on strike and assuming the school board won’t go to court to obtain an injunction to start imposing penalties and to force them back to work,” he said.

That strike tactic, McKenna notes, goes against a legal opinion he wrote while serving as Washington State Attorney General in 2006. That opinion stated that the state’s teachers do not have any legal protections to strike.

“It’s not that there’s a statute that says ‘it is illegal to strike,’ it’s that there is an absence of a statutory right to go on strike,” he said. “Public employees are subject to all kinds of laws that condition their employment and this is one of them.”

“When every individual teacher became a teacher, she or he did so knowing what the conditions of employment are. It’s not like they walked in and ‘Surprise, you don’t get to go out on strike,'” McKenna said.

So if Seattle teachers do decide to strike on Thursday, they’re doing so with the idea that the district won’t take them to court over it.

But the former attorney general said the strikes are largely unnecessary. Teachers routinely negotiate contracts without going on strike.

In the meantime, it’s all politics, according to McKenna.

“It’s a lot like the Legislature going into extra sessions,” McKenna said. “Both sides want to show their constituents that they are holding out for the best possible deal, so they work themselves up to the deadline. Every so often the leaders of the union have to prove to their members that they are being really tough and aren’t conceding easily.”

And in the end, the constituents are at the heart of the issue. But during a teachers strike, those constituents aren’t the students, or parents, McKenna said.

“Strikes have a disproportionate impact on low-income parents who can least afford to make arrangements for daycare or child care, or to miss work. It’s extremely unfair to them,” McKenna said. “The union leaders’ constituents are the dues-paying members of their union.”

Seattle Education Association President Jonathan Knapp told KIRO Radio that teachers deserve to be able to live in the city they work. He says the system, as it is now, is not viable.

“We’re not currently able to hire and retain teachers based on the salaries that they make,” he said. “The economy is recovering and people have more options for work and it’s getting harder and harder to attract and retain teachers.”