Jan. 25 — Teachers in the Detroit Public Schools scored a major legal victory today when, for the second time, Judge Cynthia Stephens of the Michigan Court of Claims, a division of the Court of Appeals, denied DPS’s request for a temporary restraining order to force teachers to stop their sick-outs over deplorable and unsafe working conditions. Stephens on Jan. 21 denied DPS’s motion for an injunction against the teachers and ordered today’s hearing. Stephens said there is no proof that the union, the Detroit Federation of Teachers, or its interim president instigated the sick-outs. Under Michigan law it is illegal for public school teachers to strike. The Operating Engineers union also won a victory in a separate court hearing today when Wayne County Judge David Allen ruled DPS could not cut costs by having 15 instead of 75 licensed boiler operators, or one per five schools. Allen cited the lead water crisis in Flint and wrote, “[W]hen we place financial expediency over basic and critical public health needs, we reap what we sow. … Let us not have the next headline to go national be: ‘Detroit Schoolchildren Injured and Killed in Unattended Boiler Explosion.’” The DPS, led by emergency . . .
Continue reading Detroit teachers beat back injunction against sick-out actions at Workers.org