Teachers In Detroit Say "No Pay, No Work"; Detroit Parents Scramble For Second Day.
BANFIELD: 94 of the 97 Detroit public schools are closed again today. Parents left scrambling for two days in a row to figure out what to do with their kids who can't go to class. As more than 1500 teachers call in sick in protest after learning over the weekend that the district only has enough money to pay them through June 30th. Ivy Bailey is the Interim president for the Detroit Federation of teachers and she joins me now from Detroit. Ivy, thank you for being us. It's a very complex issue and I'm going to ask you to try to make it as simple as you can for us. I get it when a teacher said if you are not paying me, I'm not going to work. What's the bigger problem here? When it comes to the government not okaying the teaching package, are the teachers asking for too much? Is the government fighting that? Where's the problem?</s>IVY BAILEY, INTERIM PRESIDENT, DETROIT FEDERATION OF TEACHERS: Well, the teachers are not asking for too much. What the problem is properly funding the Detroit public school system. That's the issue. The issue is proper funding.</s>BANFIELD: But I mean, proper funding. That's a general term, but some have said there's some additions to one of the bills and that's what's sort of getting everybody stuck in place. They call them sort of polarizing additions the restrictions on collective bargaining, retirement benefits, you know, elections, and things of that nature. Are these the kinds of things that can be negotiated so that everybody can get back to work and bill can pass and the paycheck can start flowing again?</s>BAILEY: Yes. That's correct. But, you know what, right now, the issue, and we've had several issues over the last couple of months, but the issue right now is that teachers who are on what we call 26 pays and express their pay over, they are not going to be paid after June 30th. So when you do the calculations, technically, as of last Thursday, any day that those teachers work there are not being paid.</s>BANFIELD: All right, so there's a comment from the state Speaker of the House. His name is Kevin Cotter. This comes with via the Detroit free press. I don't think you're going to like what he has to say but I'm going to put his statement on the air. He said these egotistical teachers have lashed out at the children who rely on them and accomplished nothing but disrupting their students' education. Their selfish and misguided plea for attention only makes it harder for us to enact a rescue plan and makes it hard for Detroit's youngest residents to get ahead and build a future for themselves. I'd love to get your reaction to that and your reaction to that and also your reaction to say, the House and what its responsibility is to pay those people it wants to look after those kids?</s>BAILEY: So my reaction is, and I did read what Cotters said and he always makes statement of that sort. Teachers are not being egotistical. Teachers are being advocates for students and what's happening here, you're putting it on the teachers but the job is up in Lansing. It's the legislator's job to do the right thing and to make sure our people are paid appropriately.</s>BANFIELD: So but who's at fault? Because both Houses, the House and the senate at the state level are Republicans. Are they fighting with one another? Are they both fighting with the teachers union? Where is the critical problem? Where does it need to be identified so that you can get to work right on that moment?</s>BAILEY: First of all, the problem needs to be identified by them in the House and Detroit, Michigan has been up on the emergency management for the last ten years, if not a little more. But technically, under the last ten years. So who did that? The state did that. The state needs to look at why, when emergency managers first came in, then we had a surplus and when the emergency managers left, we had a $515 million deficit. And they also need to look at why no one was held accountable for that deficit. And so now you want to blame it on teachers who go to work everyday and do their job they're supposed to. And then, you want to get upset because we want to be paid to do our job? Like, really? This is America. You work, --</s>BANFIELD: Wow.</s>BAILEY: -- you get paid.</s>BAILEY: Thank you.</s>BANFIELD: And thank you, everyone, for watching LEGAL VIEW. To continue watching CNN, you can stay right here or you can online, too, to watch it, CNN.com. "WOLF" starts right now.