By Roy Rydell

People's Weekly World

NEW YORK - This Labor Day thousands of workers are marching in cities across the country. The trade unions are marching with their allies in the community, retirees' organizations, civil rights groups and peace organizations, all united in their opposition to the far right policies of the Bush administration.

One of the largest contingents in the New York City parade Sept. 8 will be that of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) headed up by Randi Weingarten. They have been working without a contract due to stonewalling by lame duck Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The wages of New York City teachers are considerably lower than those of the surrounding suburbs.

After months of stalling by the administration, negotiations with the UFT is at an impasse. In the meantime, weaknesses in the New York City public school system are blamed on the union and the idea of public education itself is under attack.

On this Labor Day it would be a fine idea if the labor movement were to point out the role of labor, the leading force in fighting for free public education in this country.

The main weapon used against the teachers' union and other public worker unions in New York is the Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes in the public sector and penalizes each striker two days' pay for every day the employee is on strike.

The Giuliani administration recently threatened Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 with penalties under the Taylor Law and even went so far as to get an injunction prohibiting even the discussion or mention of a strike in the subway system. The TWU workers subsequently voted the local president out of leadership because he accepted the injunction without even a legal fight.

Weingarten is leading a union that is essentially united around demands for a good contract. This unity was demonstrated at the huge rally at City Hall of teachers and other trade unionists before the end of the school term in June.

Weingarten has proposed a change in the Taylor Law that would lessen the penalties imposed on public workers who go on strike if it can be demonstrated that the public agency did not bargain in good faith.

This proposal was adopted by the state AFL-CIO Taylor Law Task Force, which met in Albany earlier in the year. That conference, attended by more than 30 trade unions representing public workers, recommended that:

Make permanent existing provisions on binding interest arbitration.

Guarantee all public employees the right of representation when they are subject to disciplinary interviews by their employer.

Provide for an effective remedy when public agencies are found to have refused to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement in good faith.

A study of the Taylor Law by Cornell University in May 1998 pointed out that the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which gave private sector unions recognition for the purpose of collective bargaining, didn't address public sector unions. At the end of World War II there were 4,600 reported strikes, many of which were in the public sector.

In 1946 the mayor of Rochester, N.Y. fired 486 civil service workers and threatened to privatize all government services when the city workers asked for union recognition. Some 30,000 Rochester workers, public and private, took part in a one-day general strike in support of the fired workers. In Buffalo, 2,400 teachers went on strike for a week the following year.

In 1947 Congress passed the notorious Taft-Hartley Act, which required union officials to sign a non-Communist oath. Another provision prohibited strikes by public workers. Penalties included immediate dismissal and a three-year ban on reemployment.

New York State passed the Condon-Wadlin Act, which called for dismissal of a striking public employee. If a striker was reinstated, he was barred from any pay increase for three years and was placed on probation for five years.

In 1964 there were 21 strikes but the law was invoked only seven times and 18 strikers were fired. Some of the strikers were later rehired or transferred.

In 1963, the state legislature changed the penalties for striking to a six-month pay freeze for reinstated employees, a one-year probation period, and two days' pay deduction for each day a worker was on strike.

These changes didn't prevent public sector strikes. In 1965, about 6,000 New York Department of Welfare workers went on strike for 28 days. The negotiated settlement provided for the suspension of strike penalties.

In 1966 transit workers went on strike in New York City for 12 days. The workers won a pay increase that was contested. When it looked like the strike might be resumed, the state legislature passed an amnesty bill exempting the strikers from all penalties under the Condon-Wadlin Law.

In 1967 Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller appointed George W. Taylor, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, to head up a "Public Employment Relations Committee."

The Taylor Law is supposed to prevent strikes by public employees by giving workers the right to bargain collectively, but it still provides for the two-day penalty for each day a public worker goes on strike.

In all discussions on the Taylor Law much is made of the idea that a strike by public workers is against the public interest. Even some labor organizations take the position that a strike by public workers is anti-public interest. But the right to strike is the right of every worker - public or private sector.

The Taylor Law isn't designed to protect the public; it's designed to keep public workers in a strait-jacket. No union exercises the right to strike loosely or without thinking hard about the consequences. Workers know that it's no picnic being on strike.

It's worth remembering that when the Welfare Department workers went on strike in 1965 and when the Transit Workers struck in 1966, the unity that these workers demonstrated on the picket line forced the city to cancel the penalties called for under Condon-Wadlin.

Teachers are fighting for demands that are in the best interest of the children who attend the schools - that is, higher pay to keep the teachers in the New York City school system, which is losing its best teachers to the higher paying suburbs.

The teachers' union is fighting to preserve the hard-won tradition of free public education and the best schools possible for the city's children.