Following the largest teacher "sick out" so far in Detroit on Wednesday, legislation has been introduced in the Michigan Senate that would strengthen Michigan's anit-strike laws. Local State Senator Phil Pavlov helped introduce a series of bills on Thursday, that would put a stop to legal loopholes that are allowing the "sick outs". He notes that over 700,000 hours of educational time has been wasted, and denied, to Detroit students over the past months. Pavlov introduced legislation that would simplify the process for declaring an illegal strike and impose stricter penalties on those that violate the law. He says that when thousands of children are denied valuable instructional time, and their parents are left scrambling to ensure they're cared for because their schools have been shutdown by teachers refusing to work, that's a strike and it's illegal. Pavlov says that getting the children in Detroit back into a classroom should be the first and foremost priority for the legislature, and then start working on getting Detroit Public Schools out of debt. The Senate Bills would simply the process for declaring an illegal strike and impose stricter penalties on those that violate the law, including larger fines and potential desertification for teachers.
