Virginia teachers may be able soon to engage in collective bargaining with the public school systems.
Currently, they are forbidden to do so by a measure passed in the 1990’s that bar public employee unions from bargaining over wages and benefits.
The Washington Post reports that the measure that would overturn that ban has been approved in the House on a party line vote and must now go to the state Senate.
Delegate Elizabeth Guzman told the paper that the measure would give educators “a seat at the bargaining table.”
Meanwhile, Jim Livingston, president of the Virginia Education Association noted that U.S. News and World Report ranked Virginia seventy in school quality.
But he pointed out that teacher salaries ranked 32nd in the nationaccording to the National Education Association.
