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Thousands of Denver teachers go on strike over wages in latest US educator walkout

Denver teachers and community members picket outside Abraham Lincoln High School on February 11, 2019 in Denver, Colorado. (Getty Images)

Thousands of public school teachers in Denver, Colorado, have gone on strike over wages, disrupting classes for more than 90,000 students, the latest US educator walkout in at least a half-dozen states over the last year.

Just over half of the 4,725 teachers called in absent on Monday after talks over salaries broke down on Saturday, triggering Denver’s first strike in 25 years.

In one school, students danced and chanted in the hallways as they walked out to demonstrate to support their teachers. Other students joined hundreds of teachers and union members in a march past City Hall.

Denver’s teachers’ union says a new pay scheme has sacrificed dependable cost-of-living wage hikes for limited bonuses offered for teaching in high-poverty areas and classes with problematic students.

The two sides are scheduled to reconvene for talks at 10:00 am on Tuesday, when thousands of teachers are again expected to brave freezing weather to picket outside schools before a rally at the city’s Civic Center Park.

The Denver strike comes about a year after West Virginia teachers launched the national “Red4Ed” movement with a nine-day strike in which they won 5 percent pay raises. There have since been walkouts in Washington state, Arizona, Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Most recently, Los Angeles teachers staged a six-day strike last month. That walkout ended when teachers received a 6-percent raise and promises of smaller class sizes and the addition of more nurses and counselors.

According to the National Education Association, a group representing public school teachers in the United States, the average teacher salary in the country decreased by four percent from 2008‒09 to 2017‒18, after inflation adjustment.


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