A political time bomb is ticking in Greenville, and the explosion could transform the state’s public education environment for decades to come.
Last Monday and Tuesday, between 13-20 bus drivers for the Greenville Public School District — some of the lowest paid employees in one of the most under-resourced school districts in one of the most under-resourced regions of America — skipped work to protest reduced pay and what they called poor work conditions.
As far as anyone knows, this was the first organized work stoppage in Mississippi public schools since 9,429 teachers walked out in a 1985 strike, after which lawmakers passed the demanded pay increases but also enacted one of the nation’s most stringent strike laws.
Lawmakers that year made it explicitly illegal for school employees to strike in Mississippi. They drafted the law as broadly as possible to include pretty much any CONTINUE READING: Activists in Mississippi have been clamoring to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s anti-strike law. Greenville school bus drivers may have kicked the door wide open. – Fred Klonsky