BOSTON (WWLP) – Gov. Maura Healey declined to meet with members of the Woburn Teachers Association after they showed up outside her office on the fifth day of their strike Friday afternoon.
The teachers in the cold on the steps of the State House, where they heard encouragement from supporters such as Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page, Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven Tolman, and Reps. Mike Connolly and Erika Uyterhoeven, and messages of support from U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and Rep. Katherine Clark. The group of educators then went inside the building with their signs to ask that Healey come out of her office and meet with them.
“As someone who did vote for her as well, I would certainly like to see our governor not stand on the sidelines but act as a true leader and stand with us,” Woburn Teachers Association Secretary Eric Scarborough said, standing outside the State House in below 20 degree weather on Friday afternoon.
A Healey aide, who was outside the office waiting for the group, told them the governor was in a meeting. When asked if they could meet with the Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, the aide told union members she was in a meeting as well.
Brookline Teachers Association president Jessica Wender-Shubow, who went on strike earlier this year, asked the aide if he had asked the governor if she could step out of her meeting. The aide responded that he hadn’t, but that he would ask another staff member to ask the governor.
“Why don’t you give her the decision? Be respectful of a woman governor to not speak for her, let her decide if she wants to come out. Would you let us know, would you do that?,” Wender-Shubow said.
“For sure, I’m going to pass this along right now,” he responded.
“We think she’ll want to come and talk to these educators,” Wender-Shubow said. “They’ve been out on the line for four days, they’re going to go back there tonight and they will be there until this is done. It’s taken too long, and we know she can do something about it and that she’ll want to, and we’d like to hear from her what she’d like to do. We won’t keep her long.”
Union members told the aide they hoped Healey could call Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin to voice her support for the educators’ contract demands and bring an end to the strike.
The group waited outside the governor’s office for about five minutes before they were told the governor could not leave her meeting. Healey aides collected pamphlets and said they would pass along information about the strike to the governor, though they did not commit to having her call the mayor.
“Governor Healey’s focus is on keeping kids in school, making sure they receive a high-quality education and supporting our hardworking educators. Our administration has been in touch with all parties in Woburn urging them to come to an immediate agreement so that our educators get the benefits and wages they deserve, and students can return to the classroom,” Karissa Hand, a Healey spokesperson, said later in a statement to the News Service.
The teacher’s union, which represents over 500 educators, has been working without a contract for over a year. Negotiations came to a head last weekend when the union voted to strike — as of Friday becoming the longest teachers’ strike so far this school year in Massachusetts.
Striking is illegal in Massachusetts for public school educators because of a state law, and Superior Court Judge Maureen Mulligan ruled this week that the Woburn Teachers Association would be fined $40,000 on Thursday and $5,000 each day educators stayed on the picket line, bringing their total fine so far up to $45,000.
Though the union told reporterson Thursday night that they had made progress with the school committee and Mayor Galvin, Scarborough said Friday that some of their key asks had not yet been met.
“We are potentially close but then we still have a few sticking points that you know, we could potentially lose if we don’t, if we don’t keep up the pressure — smaller class sizes, gym twice a week for our kids, and ensuring the competitive wage for teachers,” he said.
When asked what kind of salary increases they would like to see reflected in their paychecks, Scarborough said they were not looking for a “specific wage,” but “something that keeps us competitive with our surrounding districts.”
Though Healey did not meet with the union on Friday, she responded to a question about the strike on GBH’s Ask the Governor on Tuesday, when a caller asked what the state could do to remove impediments in negotiations.
“I thought you were calling from Woburn to tell me that the strike had been resolved, because that has been my fervent hope,” Healey said on Tuesday, the second day of the strike. “I want to see kids back in school, I want to support our kids, I want to support our families, I want to support our educators.”
The governor outlined what she saw as three issues educators are facing today: pay and benefits, mental health issues for students and teachers alike, and limited personnel in the school workforce.
“Our paraprofessionals, who have a starting salary of $22,000 a year — it’s pretty hard to make a go of it at $22,000 a year, I get it,” Healey said. “The good news is we have money now that will be coming in to the state and, you know, hopefully we can be using that, we’re going to be using that exclusively by just the Fair Share Amendment, we’re going to be using that revenue exclusively for education and transportation. With respect to education, hopefully, there are investments that we can make in schools to support the work that educators are doing.”
She said she was mindful of challenges to the profession as educators seek other careers and retire early.
“We need to keep educators in place, we also need to diversify our educator workforce around the state,” she said. “I really appreciate the important role they have to play in the health and well being and direction of the lives of our kids around the state. With respect to what’s happening in Woburn, I just really hope that people stay at the table and can figure out a way to get this one done.”
After leaving Healey’s office, the union members moved to House Speaker Mariano’s office. They were told the speaker wasn’t in the office. They also knocked on the door of Rep. Richard Haggerty, who represents Woburn, but no one answered the door.
“Our elected officials have stayed silent for far too long. Standing on the sidelines is not what makes a true leader. I ask them, ‘Do you or do you not support educators?’ ” Scarborough said.