A strike by employees of the nation's largest teachers union has forced President Biden to cancel a speech he was scheduled to give to thousands of delegates at the union's annual convention in Philadelphia on Sunday.
The National Education Association employees union began a strike on Friday, accusing management of canceling holiday overtime pay and refusing to provide information about $50 million in outsourced work that may have previously been done by NEA employees. The strike disrupted the final three days of the four-day convention as delegates refused to cross the picket line.
Biden's campaign also said the president would not do so. “President Biden is a staunch supporter of unions and will not cross the strike line,” the campaign said in a statement, adding that the president was planning to visit Pennsylvania over the weekend.
The National Education Association has about 2.5 million members nationwide, not including retirees, according to recent government filings. The employees' union says it represents more than 350 employees based at union headquarters in Washington.
The school employees' union, the National Education Association Employees Organization, voted to authorize a strike in April, with their three-year contract expiring at the end of May. They staged a one-day walkout in June. “The National Education Association has abandoned our union values with its actions at the bargaining table,” school employees' union president Robin McLean said in a statement. “The National Education Association has chosen to cancel its expensive convention rather than comply with labor law.”
In a statement, the NEA said it was “fully committed to a fair bargaining process” and accused the staff union of spreading “false information” that “not only misrepresents the facts but also undermines the sincerity of our ongoing efforts to respect a fair bargaining process.”
The union added that the association offers generous benefits and competitive salaries, and said the current proposal would raise the average salary of staff union members from about $124,000 to about $133,000.
Strikes by unionized employees are not uncommon: United Food and Commercial Workers employees staged a one-day strike in May, and employees of a large chapter of the Service Employees International Union in California staged a two-week strike earlier this year.
