Voices From 1975: The Strike (Part 3)
Note: This is the third in a series of inaugural posts on the new CEA blog. In an effort to preserve the institutional history of the Columbus Education Association, this ongoing series of posts will chronicle the 1974-1975 school year that led to the first and only strike by the membership of CEA. To view all published entries in the series, click here.
The man who would be President of the Columbus Education Association during its most trying period of existence admits to never wanting to seek the office. A series of events would conspire to influence Theodore Thomas to become the leader of thousands of Columbus teachers shortly before bargaining began in the fall of 1974.
CEA President Don Pierce had succeeded former President Thomas Giles who left the Presidency in 1971 to pursue a Master’s degree at Ohio State University. Pierce had been reelected in 1972 after finishing out the balance of Giles’ term and was expected by many to run for a second term in the spring of 1974. Before Pierce could be reelected, the 1973-1974 agreement would have to be signed, sealed and delivered by the Professional Negotiations team.
It was now late May of 1973, and the negotiations between the Board of Education and CEA had been going on since January. As had happened in the past, little ground had been gained by the Professional Negotiations team, despite press releases by the Association calling for the Board to bargain in good faith by responding to CEA’s proposals.
The Chair of the Professional Negotiations Team (PN Team) was Theodore Thomas, then a teacher at Cedarwood Elementary and a five year member of the CEA Board of Governors. Called Ted by his friends, he had been teaching in Columbus since 1963, after leaving the Cincinnati school district. Teachers Freezel Calvin, Diane Osterwise and Executive Director Jack Burgess made up the rest of the PN Team.
Despite the Association’s honest efforts, the Board failed to respond to the majority of CEA’s proposals. Thomas formally requested Federal Mediation in early April, and the two sides began to make some headway on the issues before them. They had until mid-June, when the members of the Association would convene to either ratify a new agreement or decide on what action to take for the following school year. Cries of “no contract, no work” had been heard in schools throughout the district.
In an unprecedented move, the PN Team was released full-time from their classrooms by Superintendent John Ellis for the final two and a half weeks of school to finish negotiating the contract. Many non-salary items on the table had already been agreed on. The final item that the Association and the Board deadlocked on was the proposal regarding salary issues; neither side wanted to budge.
Friday, June 8th saw the last day of school for students for the 1972-1973 school year. Teachers were required by contract to remain in school for the first two days of the next week for “teacher record days”. Negotiations continued non-stop over the weekend, but no agreement had yet been reached.
Monday the 11th saw a statement from Pierce issued to the media, stating that the mass meeting for all teachers would be held just three days later, at 7 PM on Thursday at Veteran’s Memorial. The statement included the ominous quote “the parties at the negotiating table are not close to agreement at this time”. This gave the professional negotiations team less than 72 hours to present a workable proposal to the membership to vote on. Negotiations continued for the next three days around the clock.
“At 3 AM on Thursday morning, the federal mediator came into our room at the hotel,” remembers Thomas. “He said ‘We’ve got an agreement.’ Freezel Calvin, one of the teachers on the Professional Negotiations committee asked the mediator ‘They agreed to our position?’. The mediator replied, saying ‘No, Don Pierce just came in and gave in to the Superintendent’s position.’”
The Professional Negotiations team looked at each other in horror, with mouths agape, but there was nothing that could be done—their President had already agreed to the Board’s proposal, and it had to be presented to all of the teachers in Columbus. The contract was ratified a little more than 16 hours later at the mass membership meeting held in Veteran’s Memorial.
The first few months of the year were largely uneventful. Pierce was elected to the office of Vice President of the Ohio Education Association in December, an organization that CEA had formally joined only a few years ago. The spring of 1974 would see the next election for President and Vice President of CEA.
It was assumed by many that Pierce would run again for his final term in that office—the President of CEA was then limited by the Association’s Constitution for running for two consecutive two year terms. Friends of Ted Thomas both on and off the Board of Governors were quietly urging him to run against Pierce.
“I never wanted to be President of CEA,” recalls Thomas. “It wasn’t in my ambitions. I remember Pierce announced at a Board of Governors meeting early in 1974 that he was going to run again, and that he was expecting us to support him. He made a few phone calls to the Governors and found out he couldn’t count on their support or the support of their buildings.” Thomas’ supporters urged him to throw his hat in the ring.
“There were 8 printing presses in the district,” said Thomas. “I figured if Jim could arrange for 7 of them to not print anyone’s stuff and 1 printing press to only run my campaign literature, I could stand a pretty good chance of winning.” In a CEA press release dated February 8th, 1974 Don Pierce officially announced he would not seek election again to the Presidency. Citing other responsibilities as the reason for not running, Pierce would return to the schools for the 1974-1975 school year as a principal.
Ted Thomas and fellow Governor Curtis Smith, a teacher at Linden McKinley High School quickly declared their candidacy. Incumbent Vice President Doris Allen of Ohio Avenue Elementary was facing opposition from Polly Fugate, a Board of Governors Member and a teacher at Reeb Elementary. The candidates met at the Ohio Historical Society on Thursday, March 7th to speak to the gathered delegates of the Legislative Assembly.
“Each candidate was allowed to speak for a few minutes,” remembers Thomas. “I gave my normal off-the cuff campaign speech I had already given hundreds of different times to many different people at many different buildings.”
The election occurred in the early days of April, 1974. In a press release on Thursday, April 4th, Ted Thomas was declared the winner for the office of President, accumulating 1520 votes to Curtis Smith’s 847 votes. Polly Fugate received 1212 votes to Doris Allen’s 1147—beating her by less than 3% of the total votes cast for the office of Vice President. Both newly elected officers would begin their term in just a few months– on June 1st. It would be an eventful school year for the two new officers and the members of the Columbus Education Association.