- Wisconsin Education Association Council. “The Hortonville Teachers’ Strike of 1974”. IN: Holter, Darryl. Workers and Unions in Wisconsin: A Labor History Anthology. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; 1999; pp. 240-243. Notes: An account of one of the bitterest strikes in the state’s history, the 1974 Hortonville, Wisconsin strike by the public school teachers, represented by the Hortonville Education Association (H.E.A.), against the Hortonville Joint School District, which was represented by Melli, Walker and Pease, the Madison, Wisconsin law firm notorious for union-busting tactics. After working for five months past the expiration date of their contract and with negotiations for the new contract at a protracted stalemate, the teachers went out on strike beginning March 18, 1974. On April 2, the school district terminated all of the striking teachers and re-opened the schools with “replacement teachers” on April 8; many of these scabs quit after only one day on the job. Although the H.E.A possessed evidence that many of the scabs were not licensed to teach in Wisconsin and appealed to the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Barbara Thompson, to enforce state law and cut off all state school aids to the school for each day of violation, this was not done. Due to the hundreds of teachers from outside the area, who came to Hortonville to support the strikers, some community members formed the Hortonville Vigilante Association to counter the teachers’ picket line. In August the H.E.A., an affiliate of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, filed a class action lawsuit against the school district on several grounds; the case went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where the teachers won, but then lost on appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court. Wisconsin law was subsequently amended, however, to provide for an effective binding mediation-arbitration process to assist in resolution of impasses during public employee bargaining. Even today the state’s political picture is influenced by which side people were on of this labor dispute! [The account in Holter’s book is from “The Hortonville Teachers’ Strike, 1974,” a publication of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.]