Thursday, 4:30 PM
Quincy teachers strike over contract
(George Rizer/Globe Staff)
Teachers picketed today outside Quincy High School.
By Globe Staff
School was canceled for 9,000 students in Quincy today when teachers followed through with a planned strike and walked picket lines.
Quincy's teachers union, the Quincy Education Association, voted Thursday to strike after failing to reach a contract agreement with the city's School Committee.
Superintendent Richard DeCristofaro could not be reached for comment last night or this morning. About 820 of the union's 900 members attended the strike vote at the Boston Teacher's Union Hall in Dorchester, according to Paul Phillips, union president , who called the vote to strike "overwhelming."
"It was a highly charged meeting," Phillips said in a phone interview Thursday night. "Teachers are not the type of people who are routinely engaged in civil disobedience."
Phillips said Mayor William Phelan's offer to increase teacher salaries by 13 percent over four years was inadequate when combined with an increase in health insurance costs.
Phelan proposed doubling the employee share of insurance costs to 20 percent to help absorb the soaring costs for the city.
Phillips said that without a more gradual increase, the mayor was essentially proposing a pay cut. Many teachers' raises would be "wiped out or very low over the four years, and that doesn't meet inflation," he said. "Your standard of living goes down."
The union set a deadline of Thursday to reach an agreement because with one week of school left, there must be time to consider the contract before it is signed.
Administrative staff was is expected to report to the city's 19 public schools and would be stationed in buildings at 5 a.m. in case students arrive and have to stay, Elaine Dwyer, Quincy School Committee vice chairwoman, said Thursday night.
