Teachers went on strike Wednesday in Providence, R.I., canceling classes for more than 20,000 students. It was the largest district hit by labor trouble that affected 100,000 students in five states.
Marathon negotiations failed in Providence at 9 p.m. Tuesday, and teachers began picketing this morning.Labor problems - either strikes or last-minute talks that disrupted classes - also affected students in several other Rhode Island districts, totaling another 20,000 students, and in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Michigan.
Wages and benefits were the main issues in most strikes and bargaining sessions.
In New Jersey, teachers were out in the Willingboro and Cinnaminson school districts, both near Camden, carried picket signs instead of class lists Wednesday. Willingboro, with 6,300 students, planned a partial day of school with substitutes, while classes were canceled in Cinnaminson, enrollment 2,100.
Strikes were under way Wednesday in 14 school districts in Pennsylvania, affecting more than 34,000 students.
In the Elizabethtown district in Pennsylvania, union president Nancy Warble said teachers were striking Wednesday because "there was no progress" at negotiations Tuesday.
"We gave them a counterproposal and received nothing from them," she said. "They have to start bargaining seriously, and I don't think they've done that since January."
In Michigan, strikes continued Wednesday in the Richmond, Tawas Area, Anchor Bay, Fenton, Stockbridge, Indian River Inland Lakes and Cedar Springs districts, the state teachers union organization said. The strikes affected more than 16,000 students.
"The issues up in the air are salary, benefits, class size and employee participation in school-improvement plans," union spokeswoman Jacqui Johnson said.
Jason Zornow, 17, a junior at Stockbridge High School in southern Michigan, said, "I'm bummed."
In Ohio, strikes in four districts in Trumbull and Lorain counties affected about 450 teachers and about 8,000 students.
In Providence, school and union officials made "no progress whatsoever" before talks broke off, school board chairman Vincent P. McWilliams said.
Both sides had met for 18 of the previous 28 hours, he said.