Newton Teachers Union President Fights 'Revisionist Effort' On Strike

NEWTON, MA — While Newton teachers and students are back in the classrooms — including on Tuesday as many other districts called a snow day — as they look to recover and move on from the longest Massachusetts educators strike in three decades, Newton Teachers Association President Mike Zilles sought to defend the purpose and the gains of the work stoppage that gained national attention as it lasted 15 days.

In an open letter to NTA membership posted on the NTA's social media, Zilles said the end of the strike on Feb. 2 "was both an end and a beginning" and that as "the jubilation of winning the contract battle is starting to wear off ... what is setting in is a view of the work to come."

Some of that work for NTA leadership includes promoting the benefits that the union secured during the historic and deeply divisive strike while pushing back on what Zilles called the "revisionist effort" — namely from Boston Globe editorial writers — to frame the action as a largely failed effort that cost learning with little gain for NTA members and their leaders, who Zilles said in the letter were being portrayed as "simple-minded dupes of the (Massachusetts Teachers Association)."

"While the Globe news coverage has been reasonably balanced, that is not true of the editorial page," Zilles said. "We will be asking the Globe to publish a full-column reply."

Zilles sought to "set the record straight" in touting the 12 percent cost-of-living wage increase over four years, and 16 percent COLA for Unit C employees — including many mental health and special needs support staff — over four years.

Zilles also cited a 30 percent increase in starting salaries for Unit C employees, a "fair and modern parental leave policy" that allows for up to 60 days of paid days off, the addition of mental health providers in elementary schools next year with the goal of having one full-time social worker in every elementary and middle school by the end of the contract, smaller high school class sizes, more planning time and an increase in substitute teacher coverage personnel.

Zilles also took parting shots at Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, the School Committee, the City Council and Superintendent Anna Nolin for their negotiating tactics leading up to and during the first two weeks of the strike.

"They wanted Newton to be the testing grounds where they could defeat the MTA," Zilles said. "We went on strike for our members and our students, not because we were the pawns of anyone else's agenda. The School Committee, Mayor Fuller, and Superintendent Nolin held us out on strike because they wanted to break us, break our union, and what they perceived as the string of strikes. Their playbook was to defeat the 'MTA Playbook.' And if what they said were true, that we were mere pawns, or dupes, of the MTA, that might have happened.

"They wanted to declare Newton the poster child for defeating a strike, and instead, they encountered an indomitable force."