LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Clark County Education Association is planning to circulate a ballot initiative that would give Nevada teachers the right to strike.
Currently, all public employees — including teachers — are prohibited from striking under state law. The law grants public employees the right to binding arbitration to settle contract disputes in exchange for forfeiting the right to strike.
But John Vellardita, the executive director of the Clark County Education Association, told KTNV Channel 13 that collective bargaining takes too long and leaves teachers waiting for raises, sometimes for months.
“What we do know is we have 10 years of experience where the current law to resolve contract disputes doesn’t work,” Vellardita said. “It’s called binding arbitration. It can take anywhere from seven months to a year and a half for resolution. We just went through a nine-month contract fight with” the Clark County School District.
Under the petition, only teachers would get the right to strike. Other public employees, including firefighters, police officers, state and local government employees would still be prohibited from striking. A poll commissioned by the teachers union found support for allowing teachers to strike.
Even if the union gathers the more than 102,000 valid signatures to send the measure to the 2025 Legislature, however, it still may not become law. Vellardita says the union is still open to compromise on reforms to the binding arbitration process, including potentially stricter deadlines for resolving disputes. If that happens, he suggested the union may ultimately withdraw its petition.
In 2020, the union qualified two tax measures — increases in the gaming tax and sales tax — but ended up withdrawing both after a separate compromise was struck on a mining tax.
“And part of the idea around filing this ballot initiative and then presenting it to the 2025 legislative session as well as the executive branch is to see is there an alternative that we could land on?” Vellardita said. “And if that alternative has a faster remedy process, where we’re not waiting forever, where we do control the calendar, where we do get in real time resolution to a contract dispute, we’ve told everybody that we’re open to finding some kind of resolution on this matter.”
If the union gets the required signatures, the petition would go to the Legislature next year, where lawmakers would have 40 days to either pass it into law or reject it. If they take no action — or if Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoes the law — it will go before voters on the 2026 general-election ballot, unless it's withdrawn before that time.
