As judges sent dozens more striking Monmouth County teachers and secretaries to jail Wednesday, the confrontation moved a day closer to the possible firing of defiant school workers -- a step never before taken in New Jersey.

State Superior Court Judge Clarkson S. Fisher Jr., in an opinion issued Monday, had warned Middletown Township teachers that he might resort to mass dismissals if spending time in jail doesn't force them to end their illegal strike within a week.

He also has discussed the option behind closed doors with lawyers for the teachers union and the school board, representatives for both sides said.

The judge would not comment Wednesday, but lawyers for the school district and the union suggested that the prospect of mass dismissals might be just the kind of jolt needed to end the five-day standoff. In fact, the board requested such a step last week.

Ironically, the teachers union saw some hope in such a prospect. "It would put pressure on the board," said Gail Oxfeld Kanef, a lawyer for the Middletown Township Education Association.

Under such an order, she said, the district could not rehire the teachers. Instead, it would have to find hundreds of qualified replacements, virtually overnight.

On Wednesday, 88 more teachers and secretaries went to jail rather than obey Fisher's order to end their illegal walkout. They joined 47 others who were jailed Monday and Tuesday.

Both sides were scheduled to gather at a Red Bank hotel Wednesday night for a mediation session run by state labor officials. A Tuesday night mediation session, in which state labor officials shuttled between the union in one room and the board's negotiators in another, lasted six hours without results.

In a sign of how notorious this strike has become, Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, the union's parent organization, came to Freehold on Wednesday night to cheer on the 1,000 striking employees.

"Pick a fight with any of us and you have picked a fight with all of us," he said.

In his opinion Monday, Fisher wrote that he would consider firing the hundreds of teachers and secretaries if incarceration doesn't carry the necessary "sting" to compel them back to work.

"While there is authority for the entry of such an order, the power to take this step is controversial," he wrote.

Only one judge in New Jersey has ever officially threatened teachers with such a punishment, and the teachers returned to work before any lost their jobs, said Michael J. Gross, a lawyer for the Middletown school board.

Fisher, the first judge since 1978 to send striking teachers to jail, has already gone further than any other New Jersey judge. Usually, judges incarcerate only union leaders, or impose fines on the organization.

Fisher, who presided over a 1998 strike by the same teachers, decided fines wouldn't be enough to settle this strike. He said a recent strike in Mercer County showed fines to be ineffective, and, as usually happens, the fines were lifted after the walkout ended.

"That experience almost guarantees a future strike in that community," Fisher wrote.

In the 1998 standoff, Fisher himself tried to force the Middletown teachers to compensate the district for more than $200,000 in strike-related expenses. But he was overruled by an appellate court, Gross said.

If that experience prompted Fisher to take a harder line against teachers this time, he is showing no sign of anger, either.

He continued Wednesday to excuse any striker from his punishment if they claimed a medical condition or family responsibility; as a result, about 25 percent of the teachers and secretaries wound up going home instead of to jail. He allowed the teachers and secretaries to make occasionally long-winded courtroom speeches, and allowed those in the gallery to give a "thumbs-up" sign as their colleagues were led out by sheriff's officers.

Another judge, Ira Kreizman, working from the main courthouse a few blocks away, joined Fisher in enforcing his order. But Kreizman was more stern, refusing to allow child care as an excuse for avoiding jail and prohibiting any displays of union solidarity in his courtroom.

The two judges divided up the teachers alphabetically, and by day's end, they had reached the I's and J's. They plan to pick up today where they ended Wednesday afternoon.

After Wednesday's batch of teachers had been fingerprinted, issued jail uniforms, and assigned their cells, the Monmouth County Correctional Institution had room for about 200 more strikers. The teachers will likely have to be mixed in with people charged with crimes, said Adam Puharic, a sheriff's office spokesman.

Although reporters tried to interview some of the jailed teachers, none of them agreed to meet with reporters, Puharic said.

The strike, union officials say, centers on the school board's demand that employees pay a larger share of their health insurance premiums. The school board wants teachers to pay 3 percent to 7 percent of their premiums, depending on how much they earn. Schools remained closed for a fourth day Wednesday.
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Jailed N.J. Teachers to Return to Work
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, Dec. 7, 2001

TRENTON, N.J. -- A judge ordered the release of more than 200 jailed teachers Friday morning after their union agreed to end a week-old strike without a contract.
Steve Wollmer, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, said the union representing more than 1,000 teachers and support staff in Middletown Township signed off on a report by two state mediators that would have increased employee insurance costs substantially over three years. But a few hours later, the school board rejected the same report.

Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Clarkson Fisher Jr., who ruled the strike illegal Monday, appointed his own mediator.

"He is sending a very strong message to the board that this thing needs to get resolved," Wollmer said. But he acknowledged that the judge has little power to compel the Board of Education to reach an agreement.

The strike, the first in New Jersey this year, began on Nov. 29, forcing the closing of Middletown's 17 schools. With 10,000 students, the district is one of the biggest in New Jersey and the largest in Monmouth County.

On Monday, Fisher jailed four teachers, taking the strikers in alphabetical order. The judge picked up the pace as the week went on, and by late Thursday, with two other judges holding hearings, more than 200 teachers were behind bars. At Monday's hearing, he also suggested that strikers might be fired if they continued to remain off the job.

Under New Jersey law, there are no automatic penalties for school strikes, but back-to-work orders are routinely granted and judges have enormous discretion in fashioning penalties for disobeying them. Fisher is the first judge in more than 20 years in New Jersey to order rank-and-file union members imprisoned, although other judges have sent union leaders to jail, imposed fines and kept strikers in custody during school hours.

The NJEA is lobbying for legislation that would require binding arbitration when negotiations prove fruitless. The main issue in the strike has been health insurance. The board wants to increase the cost to employees, basing the hike on a percentage of salary. Wollmer said the union agreed to a flat increase phased in over the life of a new contract.