LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Gov. Joe Lombardo on Thursday signed a bill that clarifies the rules around teacher strikes, although not changing Nevada law that prohibits any public employee from going on strike.
Senate Bill 161 — sought by the Clark County Education Association — passed the Legislature with bipartisan majorities in both houses. It clarifies that protests and pickets — even those at school board meetings — don't constitute a strike under state law.
But it would still allow a school district to discipline teachers, say if they walked off the job in order to picket during school hours.
And it would still allow fines of a teachers union or its officers in the event of a coordinated, district-wide strike.
WHAT TO KNOW: Steve Sebelius breaks down the impact this legislation would have in Nevada:
The bill clarifies current law, which prohibits public employees such as teachers, firefighters, police officers and others from going on strike. In exchange for losing the right to strike, public employees are granted the right to collective bargaining with binding arbitration.
But Clark County Education Association Executive Director John Vellardita said the current law wasn't working, as evidenced by his union invoking binding arbitration at least four times over the last dozen years.
"Our experience is its a tremendous disadvantage to teachers and our organization to try to engage in good faith negotiations to try to reach a collective bargaining agreement," Vellardita said.
As a result of the protracted talks, Vellardita said, "you have teachers that will start to depart the school district because of the uncertainty of the contract that they hope to have before they start school year will mean for them. And it creates incredible morale issues, as well as anger and frustration, and that's what we've experienced."
As a result of those problems, the union qualified a ballot initiative that would have explicitly removed teachers from the anti-strike provisions in state law. That measure was set to appear on the November 2026 ballot, but with the passage of SB 161, the initiative will now be withdrawn, Vellardita said.
Lombardo told Channel 13 in an interview in January that he did not support allowing public employees to strike. Asked specifically about the ballot initiative, Lombardo said he opposed it.
"I don't support it. I don't support it," Lombardo said at the time. "And, you know, people forget history sometimes, which is unfortunate. And historically that was put into place as part of collective bargaining, the prevention of striking to protect the public."
A spokesman for Lombardo said Friday that his position hasn't changed — and the law he signed still prohibits strikes and allows fines for coordinated labor actions. But it will not allow a school district to try to punish a union for the individual acts of teachers by labeling those actions a strike, a spokeswoman said.
WATCH the exclusive interview with Channel 13 here:
In addition to the strike provisions, SB 161 also:
- Prohibits school administrators from asking or requiring teachers to work additional hours if their current contract has expired but its terms remain in effect.
- Truncates the timeline for contract negotiations to prevent them from dragging on for weeks, months or even years, which happened when former Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara led the district.
The bill went into effect immediately after the governor's signature.
It was opposed by an odd coalition of liberal and conservative groups. The progressive Battle Born Progress organization came out against it, as did the conservative Nevada Policy organization.
And it passed the Assembly 33-9 and the state Senate 14-6, with Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the issue.
Notably, the Clark County Education Association's rival union — the Nevada State Education Association — opposed the bill, saying it's scope should extend to school employees besides teachers.
This isn't the first time the teachers union has used a ballot initiative as leverage during Carson City political negotiations. In 2021, the union had qualified a measure to add a new top tier to the state's casino tax. During negotiations, however, lawmakers approved a new mining tax, and the union agreed to forego its gambling levy.
In order to facilitate that deal, the Legislature passed a law that allows the authors of an initiative to withdraw it provided they give notice at least 90 days before the general election. Then-Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske said there was no constitutional authority for her to withdraw the measure — even under the new law — but the Nevada Supreme Court later ruled in favor of the Legislature.
