The new contract that Roy Roberts, the Detroit Public Schools emergency manager, has imposed on teachers will cut benefits and reduce the amount of paid time elementary schoolteachers now get to prepare for classes, according to the Detroit Federation of Teachers.
Keith Johnson, president of the union, on Monday called Roberts' weekend announcement that he is imposing a contract instead of negotiating one a "tyrannical edict."
Johnson did not rule out a strike, which would be illegal under Michigan law.
"Suffice it to say we are examining every option on the table from saying, 'Oh, well,' to 'Hell no' and everything in between," Johnson told Chastity Pratt Dawsey of the Free Press.
After the DPS teachers' contract expired Saturday, Roberts issued an order Sunday to impose what he called a Successor Collective Bargaining Agreement. In declining to release it, DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said Roberts wants to allow the union to first share the information with teachers.
