| Declaring that teachers, school service personnel and public employees are fed up with low pay and ever-increasing health insurance costs, American Federation of Teachers of West Virginia President Christine Campbell broached the word "strike" at a rally.
"It's not something any of us take lightly," she said of the potential for the first state teachers strike since 1990.
"If our efforts appear futile, we are prepared to take additional steps," she said. "We don't want to strike. Nobody does."
West Virginia has among the lowest pay for teachers in the USA.
Anger and frustration over low pay, with no significant salary increases in years, coupled with annual hikes in Public Employees Insurance Agency health insurance costs, was the common theme of the rally.
This year, the state insurance program PEIA is proposing increased
costs to premium holders or reducing benefits.
Gov. Jim Justice has proposed raising pay by 1 percent,
even though he said 1 percent raises would hardly make a dent in issues of low pay.
Campbell said that, with no significant pay increases and with annual increases in PEIA premiums and/or co-payments and deductibles, take-home pay for state and public school employees has decreased year after year.
In March 1990, teachers statewide staged an 11-day strike after a pay raise proposal collapsed at the end of the 1990 legislative session.
The strike ended after then-Gov. Gaston Caperton agreed to call a special session on teacher pay, and a special session held that September resulted in legislation providing a three-year, $5,000 across-the-board raise for teachers, the equivalent of more than $9,000 in today's dollars.
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