Legality of Public School Teachers Strike Around the World In the kingdom of Jordan, a crisis arose last year when the teachers' union was disbanded and some teachers were fired, disciplined or even arrested after negotiations with the government broke down. Recently, one official from the ministry of education while announcing the cancelling of some of these punishments declared that &quot;الإضراب في كل الدساتير ممنوع&quot;, which roughly translates to &quot;going on strike in all constitutions is prohibited&quot; [he was talking about public school teachers and similar employees]. I don't think many nations mention in their constitutions anything about schoolteachers going on strike, so I interpret his statement as referring to the legal rather than the constitutional status of it. The question is about the accuracy of this statement: Are there any jurisdictions in which public school teachers are: Clearly prohibited from going on strike Clearly allowed to go on strike If you have definite knowledge, please provide examples for either one or both cases.
Germany There is a group of civil servants called Beamte. They are expected to show special loyalty to the state, and in turn the state is expected to show special loyalty to them. Different pension rules from regular workers, different healthcare rules, they can only be fired for gross misconduct, but in turn they are not allowed to go on strike and the state has more leeway on simply reassigning them to a different office. Then there is a group of civil servants called Angestellte im öffentlichen Dienst, whose contract is much closer to a private sector employee contract in Germany. They are allowed to go on strike for better salary or better working conditions. Some teachers are Beamte, some are Angestellte. It differs from state to state, and also by the date when they entered the profession. So some teachers in Germany can go on strike and some cannot. Both types may be mixed in the same school.
More generally, the university gets to set whatever rules it wants, unless there is a law limiting what it can do. For example, in the US a government university (qua arm of government) cannot require you to have a particular religion or profess a particular creed, but a private one can. An employer could require you to be in your office from 9 to 5, even though it is legal to not be in an office from 9 to 5. The general principle is that the institution can set its own rules for operation, unless those rules violate the law. Generally, the owner of property has the right to say how it can be used. It is quite common for universities to have variable policies regarding access to their books (e.g. "anybody can walk in and do things with the volumes, which are out in the open, except they have to have borrower's permission to take it out of the building" to "you cannot enter at all, and must have special permission to inspect the book -- nobody can take the books out of the building"). My experience is that UK libraries have a tighter rein on their holdings than do US universities (the sampling problem here is non-trivial). In some cases, the absolute control of the property owner is somewhat overridden by law, especially if the institution is a state-run university (not in the UK). Another possibility is that access to books is a contractual right (some kind of "terms of service" that you and they are bound to). Even in the case of US state universities, I cannot imagine a government having a law declaring the right to copy books to be such a fundamental right that a university cannot deny you that right. The most likely scenario for enforcement is as a contractual matter. A complete analysis of the relationship between the individual and the institution would be way too broad for here, but here is a sample of the questions that could arise. What is the source of your right to access books? Perhaps you are employed as a faculty person: do you have a contract? Can you be fired for breaking rules: are there any limits on what acts can lead to firing? What procedures if any are specified for termination, and what avenue of internal appeal exist? The government would not overrule the institution's decision unless they didn't follow the contractually-governed procedures for termination. Apart from the legal question, a perfectly coherent reason to prohibit scanning books whose copyright has expired is that the act of scanning them may damage the book.
Washington State is an "At Will" employment state meaning that, with exception to some protected classes and bargaining, the employer may terminate the employee for any reason the employer can cite, or no reason at all. If the firm used it as a benefit of the job but it wasn't agreed upon on the contract, its not a deception as if you can hold the job to the down season, you have less work to do. If a promise was made for employment into the down season during the negotiating of the job, and this was documented, it could be. It could be that he did all the work required of him, but another higher went above and beyond and he got the ax because he was the newest and the lesser performer. Either way, the employer is well within their right to fire an employee for any reason they choose absent discrimination based on protected class status.
There are two major relevant judicial decisions: the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion on whether Kosovo's unilateral declaration was in accordance with international law, and the Supreme Court of Canada's opinion on whether Quebec had the right under international law to unilaterally secede. Judicial opinions aren't terribly common, because questions of secession are usually handled through force of arms. Although the Canadian decision was made by a national court, it's considered a significant work of reasoning and is often cited on this issue (for instance, it was heavily cited in briefs before the ICJ). The ICJ held that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence was in accordance with international law. However, this did not mean that Kosovo could unilaterally secede. As the ICJ noted, they were not asked what the legal consequences of the declaration were and they were not asked whether Kosovo was independent. They were only asked whether making the declaration violated international law. The ICJ found that in general international law does not prohibit unilateral declarations of independence. In particular situations they might violate other rules of international law (e.g. if they're tied to an unlawful use of force or violation of peremptory norms), but in general a unilateral declaration of independence is not illegal. Again, though, the ICJ took pains to emphasize that they were not making any decisions about the right to secede. The case was only about announcing that a country was seceding. The Supreme Court of Canada's ruling, in contrast, was about whether actual secession was allowed. The court found that it was not, under either Canadian or international law. While international law creates a right to self-determination, that right typically only justifies secession in colonial empires. In general, a people is meant to achieve self-determination in the state they reside in. When a people is fully integrated into the life and governance of their state, they are not being denied self-determination. They might not always get what they want, but if two people disagree then someone is always going to be disappointed. The court held that A state whose government represents the whole of the people or peoples resident within its territory, on a basis of equality and without discrimination, and respects the principles of self‑determination in its internal arrangements, is entitled to maintain its territorial integrity under international law and to have that territorial integrity recognized by other states.
Let’s look at the full paragraph Neither the President nor Congress nor the Judiciary can disturb any one of the safeguards of civil liberty incorporated into the Constitution except so far as the right is given to suspend in certain cases the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. So what it actually says is: you can’t unless you can. The Constitution says this to say about habeas corpus: The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. The case decided that military commissions (and the denial of habeas corpus) were constitutional where there was no civilian court available. Because Indiana had never been in rebellion and civil courts continued to function there, military tribunals could not be used. However, they could be uses in states that had been in rebellion. You can’t unless you can. This is specifically about rights guaranteed in the Constitution In this particular case, the right of habeas corpus. There is no equivalent right applicable to face masks so a law mandating them in certain circumstances does no more infringe a Constitutional right than mandating the wearing of clothes in public. You can’t unless you can. Breaking the law doesn’t cause you to lose your job The second quote, the origin of which is unknown and definitely not in the case, is total fantasy. Even if a law against face masks was unconstitutional, the authors of that law have overreached and the remedy is to go to a court to have it declared unconstitutional. They don’t lose their jobs as a result. Even if they wrote the law with criminal intent, they must be removed from office in accordance with the normal procedures such as impeachment for the President, by a two-thirds majority vote of their house for a Congressperson etc.
why do they sometimes specify the federal law as well as the state/provincial law? Isn't it redundant? Not necessarily. The contract might be entered and/or performed in a different country, whence mentioning only the Canadian provincial law does not override the other country's federal law (or that country's &quot;supra-provincial&quot; equivalent). Mentioning Canadian federal law removes --at least on paper-- the ambiguity of which law applies for matters beyond the scope of Canadian provincial law. In such scenarios, portions or the entirety of the provision might be null and void. For instance, an employment contract might establish waivers which are void or perhaps even unlawful under the legislation of that other country. Please note that in general a copy/paste of sample clauses is strongly discouraged unless the parties fully understand their meaning and implications.
A. Yes it is clearly illegal to fire employees for unionizing. B. Companies get around this all the time by closing the facility. That means the managers lose their jobs too, which is incentive for management to keep a union from forming.
The relationship between a school board and the other state officials is purely a matter of state law. Generally speaking, a state can impose generally applicable regulations that govern public school districts, and to a lesser extent, so can the federal government. Whether this particular remedy is available in Florida would depend upon the relevant statutes. But, I very much doubt that this particular tactic is authorized by law. Instead, the normal course of action would be to apply to a state court for injunctive relief compelling the school district to follow the law, or to withhold funding for the school district as a whole. Normally, a state school board cannot directly control compensation of school board members or school district administrators. Of course, there could be some obscure provision of Florida law that authorizes this of which I am not aware. It is worth noting that Governor DeSantis, the incumbent Governor of Florida, has a track record of &quot;not coloring within the lines&quot; of what the law states that he has the authority to do.