Eighty secretaries, support staff, and teachers aides, represented by the Penn-Delco Educational Support Personnel Association, struck after negotiations failed to reach a contract January 3. The strikers work at six schools and three administrative buildings.

This is the eleventh school walkout in Pennsylvania since August. On the picket line strikers passed out flyers answering the school administration's claim that it is unreasonable to demand a 42 percent wage increase over three years. Workers have not received a raise since July 1997. Support staff, which includes special education, nurses, cafeteria, and playground aides, and part-time secretaries, start at $6.50 an hour. The union points out that support staff who have worked for the district for more than 24 years are paid a maximum of $8.13 an hour. In 1997 the district reduced aides' starting pay from $7.15 to $6.50 an hour.

District officials went to court on the second day of the strike to seek a temporary restraining order to force the strikers back to work, claiming concerns about student safety and the needs of special education students.

The judge denied the order but has set a hearing with district and union representatives to review a report detailing the effect the workers absence has on schools.

"We care about these kids. We're not just here because of the dollar," explained Sharon McLaughlin, an office aide picketing Aston Elementary School. "But we'd like to think that the school district values us as employees and has enough respect for us to pay us a decent wage."

Rebecca Arenson, J.P. Chrysdale, and James McFadden are members of the Young Socialists in Philadelphia.  
 
 
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