Newton parents file suit against teachers union over illegal strike: ‘Willful, wanton and wrong’

Newton students will be in the classroom next week while the rest of the state will be on February vacation as the Newton Teachers Association faces another lawsuit for its illegal two-week strike that resulted in 11 missed school days.

Three parents filed a class action lawsuit against the NTA in Middlesex Superior Court on Friday, claiming the teachers union “knowingly, willfully, intentionally chose to break the law by engaging in an illegal strike … throwing the lives and educations of 12,000 students into chaos as a result.”

Lital Asher-Dotan, mother of two high schoolers and a middle schooler, is leading the lawsuit against the NTA and those who she believes conspired with it to break the law, the Massachusetts Teachers Association and National Education Association.

Asher-Dotan and the two other parents are seeking “justice and compensation to rectify the immense, documented damage its illegal actions inflicted on students and their families.”

Newton teachers voted on Jan. 18 to skip class for the picket line the following day. Negotiations lasted until Feb. 2, resulting in the longest strike in recent history across Massachusetts public schools.

Bargaining teachers and the School Committee reached a deal that includes concessions” for higher pay for aides, more parental and family leave, mental health counseling for students, and a cost-of-living raise for teachers.

The union was seeking a 20% hike in pay, but they negotiated 12% over four years. That will equal 13.5% “compounded” over the life of the deal.

Throughout the effort, the union racked up  $625,000 in fines, and the district incurred more than $1 million in costs related to compensatory services and court fees.

“These tortious acts created real damage: learning loss for the students, emotional distress for the students and parents, and out-of-pocket costs for parents like tutors, camps, day care, babysitters, burned vacation and sick days, and missed work shifts,” the suit filed Friday states.

Gov. Maura Healey, a critic of teachers going on strike, jumped into the middle of the lengthy Newton teachers’ strike the day before a deal was reached, threatening that a court may order a binding resolution if negotiations continued into the following weekend.

“Indeed, creating these damages for students and their families were the key to strike: the NTA calculated that the school committee would cave if the community could no longer tolerate the inconvenience and disruption caused by the strike,” the suit states. “The union chose its illegal strike and chose to bear the costs of contempt of this court to keep striking to drive parents to a point of desperation: ‘Pay them whatever they want, just get my kid back in school.’ That was willful, wanton and wrong.”