A year and half into failed negotiations, educators in Rutland City have authorized a strike starting May 14. The vote was overwhelming: 93% of the bargaining unit’s members voted to walk off the job, according to Sue Tanen, president of the Rutland Education Association.
If the two sides don’t settle before school starts on Wednesday, it will be the first teachers’ strike in Vermont in nearly a decade. Burlington teachers went on strike for four days in 2017.
A strike could shut down schools for the city’s nearly 1,800 students just weeks before graduation day. It could also disrupt classes at Stafford Technical Center, which is run by the district and serves students throughout the Rutland region.
Tanen, who has been teaching in Rutland’s schools for nearly two decades, said educators are keenly aware of the upheaval school closures would cause. But teachers, she said on Thursday, have reached a “breaking point.”
“We feel like we've been trying and trying and trying to get a settlement, and we have not felt very respected by the board,” she said.
Contract talks have been ongoing since December 2023, and sticking points in negotiations have mostly centered on pay and sick time. Educators in Rutland City, which has historically spent under the state average, have noted that they are among the worst paid in the region. District officials, meanwhile, have sought to highlight the city’s pension plan, a unique benefit in the state.
The current contract expired July 1, when an impasse was declared. Teachers and the district have already tried and failed mediation, and the two parties engaged a fact-finder in March.
That fact-finder issued his report in early April, recommending that salaries increase by 14.8% over three years and that teachers receive two additional sick days. The union has said it is willing to accept the fact-finder’s recommendations, but the school board has rejected them and argued the findings of the report were flawed.
The board has also claimed that adopting the fact-finder’s suggestions would require the district to cut 18 positions, and it has sent educators reduction-in-force notices — a move that the union has called an unlawful threat. The union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the Vermont Labor Relations Board in late April. The district, for its part, has continued to argue that they had no choice but to issue RIF notices — and that they were in fact bound to do so under the terms of their contract.
Rutland City superintendent Bill Olsen said on Thursday that the school board hasn't taken imposing a contract off the table — but remains willing to negotiate.
“Hopefully there's still some time to try to work things out,” he said.
