FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Teacher walkouts over pay and pensions have spread to Kentucky

Teachers are walking out over a 1.5 percent cost-of-living increase and changes to their pension plan.

More than 20 counties in Kentucky announced schools will be closed Friday, following a massive wave of teachers refusing to come in to work after the state passed a new bill limiting pension and benefits late on Thursday.

The new legislation limits the number of sick days teachers can put toward their retirement, caps an annual cost of living adjustment at 1.5 percent, and changes the structure of their pensions that would limit the amount they can receive from investment gains.

Advertisement

In Jefferson County, one of the 20 counties where schools closed, nearly 1300 teachers had filed absences for Friday by 5 a.m., with several hundred more expected. Of those schools still open, 123 would have students in empty classrooms with more than 10 teachers calling out.

Kentucky teachers are the latest to use a strike to win higher pay and better benefits. Earlier this month, a two-week teachers strike in West Virginia ended with new legislation raising pensions. Teachers in other states, including Oklahoma and Arizona, are also planning strikes over inadequate pensions and benefits.

Kentucky's Jefferson County Public Schools released a brief statement in anticipation of the walkout. “Due to significant teacher absences and the inability to safely cover a large number of classes with substitute teachers in many of our schools, all JCPS schools will be closed today, March 30, 2018.”

Read: Educators say Oklahoma teacher salary increase bill is too little too late

Kentucky teachers have been worried about their pension for a while now, but in what the Kentucky Education Association called a “classic legislative bait and switch,” legislators tried to embed the pension and other changes in another 300-page Bill 151, which had, until then, concerned sewage services changes.

The changes passed overwhelmingly on party lines and heads next to Republican Governor Matt Bevin, who has voiced support for overhauling the system.

Advertisement

“Anyone who will receive a retirement check in the years ahead owes a deep debt of gratitude to these 71 men & women who did the right thing," Gov. Bevin tweeted Thursday.

With Kentucky teacher pensions ranked as one of the worst in the country, state legislators agree it needs fixing. But actual teachers clearly don’t support the way it’s being done.

Read: Oklahoma teachers haven't had a raise in a decade and they're fed up

Two hundred current and retired teachers crammed into the Capitol Thursday to protest Bill 151, following a protest of nearly 2,000 last week in anticipation of the vote. Friday could be just the beginning.

According to state law, any public employees, including teachers, are not allowed to strike. Their movement, #Kentucky120, aims to rally solidarity among teachers of the state’s all 120 counties.

Cover image: Whitney Walker, second left, and Tracy Kurzendoerfer protest outside of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's office on Friday, March 30, 2018 in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Adam Beam)