{"id":347979,"date":"2018-02-12T22:46:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T21:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/west-virginia-teachers-authorize-statewide-strike\/"},"modified":"2018-02-12T22:46:37","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T21:46:37","slug":"west-virginia-teachers-authorize-statewide-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/west-virginia-teachers-authorize-statewide-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"West Virginia teachers authorize statewide strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>West Virginia teachers authorize statewide strike<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Nancy Hanover<br \/>\n    <br \/>12 February 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>A statewide meeting of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT-WV) and the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA) in Flatwoods on Sunday announced that county-by-county balloting showed overwhelming support throughout the state for a teachers\u2019 strike.<\/p>\n<p>West Virginia teachers, now paid 48th lowest out of 50 states in the United States, are demanding an increase in salary and oppose plans by the bipartisan Public Employee Insurance Agency (PEIA) to increase out-of-pocket health care expenses. Last week, the state senate approved an insulting 1 percent annual raise.<\/p>\n<p>WVEA President Dale Lee quickly followed up by assuring the state legislature and big business interests that the strike vote \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re calling something on Monday. The legislative process is still early. It\u2019s time to look at the legislation that\u2019s moving and\u2026work the process for the best possible deal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The union executives are clearly concerned that they may not be able to hold back statewide action by 20,000 educators. Christine Campbell, AFT-WV president, remarked that there were demands for strike action even in the remote rural counties. \u201cIt\u2019s coming from everywhere,\u201d she said. For his part, Lee emphasized he was ruling out any \u201cimmediate action\u201d while the \u201clegislative process\u201d continued.<\/p>\n<p>Rank-and-file teachers, however, are determined to fight. Rallies were held in Preston, Kanawha, Fayette, Braxton, Marion, Berkeley and Jackson counties. At a rally in Wheeling, an Ohio County teacher told the press that her family\u2019s monthly premium would double under the proposed PEIA plan, from about $300 to over $600 a month.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageFull\" style=\"width:480px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/a33b5767-fd46-4bea-af7a-e8425513dd0P\/image.png?rendition=image480\"  width=\"480\" style=\"width:480px;\" \/><span>West Virginia teachers demonstrate at the capitol&#8230;<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/02\/12\/west-f12.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 West Virginia teachers authorize statewide strike By Nancy Hanover 12 February 2018 A statewide meeting of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT-WV) and the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA) in Flatwoods on Sunday announced that county-by-county balloting showed overwhelming support throughout the state for a teachers\u2019 strike. West Virginia teachers, now paid 48th [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-347979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}