This is the moment labor organizers say
will dramatically change the Dallas
Independent School District.
Monday night, the school board voted
against a teacher pay raise that would go
above five point one percent.
Dallas teachers have demanded 10 percent
tonight to teacher organizations backed
by national labor unions have decided
to take forceful action against the vote.
The executive board of the Classroom
Teachers of Dallas met in a strategy
session earlier tonight.
The is affiliated with the National
Education Association, the largest
teacher's labor union in the country.
With that union's help and its members
approval. The plans a massive
publicity campaign in advance
of the public budget hearing August 1st.
The NEA has flown in its top
labor organizers, and it's pumping
in thousands of dollars for the campaign.
I've gotten a lot of calls from members
who are most upset and want to find
some way to channel their frustrations
and to be quite can their feelings of
being hurt at this casual
rebuff by the school board into
some type of action to bring about a more
positive result.
And that's what I feel like we owe them,
is to give it the best shot that we've
got.
Elected President Baker also says
the pay issue will make the teachers an
organized power to be reckoned with.
He hinted that strikes could be used by
Dallas teachers as early as next
year. The other meeting tonight was
the Dallas Federation of Teachers.
That group is affiliated with the AFL-CIO
Federation President Harley Hiscox
as a trained labor organizer.
His group tonight has taken a more
militant stand against the board vote.
They have elected to picket the school
administration building during the
August 1st hearing.
Organizers from both groups say tonight
Dallas teachers will be politically
active on that day like never
before.
Scott Kelly, The Texas News.