by The second class action case, filed by parents of Newton students who missed school during an 11-day teacher strike last year, was dismissed by a judge.
On behalf of their children, who attend Newton Public School, Lital Asher-Dotan, Dmitriy Sokolovskiy, Dan Eshet, Barbara Cipriani, and Ronit Inbar filed a $25 million lawsuit. Parental desperation was sparked by the parents’ claims that the strike hurt families and students.
After 11 days, Newton teachers called off their historic strike in February 2024 in exchange for better minimum wages, family leave, and parental leave. on recent years, teachers on the North Shore, Brookline, Andover, Haverhill, and Malden have also gone to the picket line in an attempt to get contracts.
Massachusetts law prohibits all public employees, including teachers, from going on strike under Section 9A. The parents contended that the union officials of the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Newton Teachers Association, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and the National Education Association—all of whom were named as defendants—knew the strike was unlawful and openly backed it.
Is it not just and proper for those who violate the law to compensate the victims of their misdeeds when they injure others? In their complaint, the parents write.
Earlier this month, Judge Christopher Barry-Smith declared that children are not third-party beneficiaries of the educators collective bargaining agreement and that the union did not use coercion, intimidation, or threats as part of the labor strike.
Newton is only one example of recent history that shows how complicated and challenging collective bargaining can be between a municipality and its public employees. According to Barry-Smith, in public negotiations, parents’ and students’ interests must inevitably be represented by their elected and appointed representatives.
The judge went on to say that it would completely destroy the public employer-employee relationship to bring those student and parental interests into the already challenging process through a direct cause of action to enforce Section 9A through damages.
Parents already filed similar class action suit immediately after strike
Soon after the strike, the same parents were behind a different class action lawsuit request in the state’s case against the union. Because the litigation is over and this motion to intervene is disallowed as moot, the judge dismissed the request. The parents then launched a new case, this time with attorneys Daniel Suhr of Chicago and Ilya Feoktistov of Boston.
Barry-Smith added that there is no mention of parents or any other third parties who would be entitled to the law’s enforcement by the Commonwealth Employee Relations Board, which upholds the ban on strikes.
Following a 12-day walkout last October, Feoktistov and Suhr are also the lawyers behind a lawsuit against the Beverly Teachers Association that was launched in June. Suhr also filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Chicago Teachers Union for their 2022 strike, but he did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
According to Suhr, when educators embark on an illegal strike, they are prioritizing their own demands over those of their students. The union’s illegal actions here provide a bad example for impressionable, young pupils who look up to and respect their teachers.
Molly Farrar works for Boston.com as a general assignment reporter, covering topics such as politics, crime, and education.
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