MORGANTOWN — Solidarity honks pretty loud when it wants to.
A large group of Monongalia County teachers and other public employees got a sonic response along Patteson Drive on Feb. 3.
People driving by and motoring to the nearby WVU Coliseum for a basketball game waved and honked their horns in support.
The assemblage gathered along the busy thoroughfare to protest the state Senate’s decision the day before to offer a 1 percent pay raise — which public workers say doesn’t go nearly far enough to help them support their families and households.
Sam Brunett, a longtime art teacher at Morgantown High School and president of the Monongalia County chapter of AFT, the American Federation of Teachers, called the action “a slow-moving slap in the face,” for all state employees.
Teachers, he said, don’t just tend to children in their classrooms. They have them in their living rooms, too.
“We just want to able to take care of our kids while we’re helping to take care of yours,” he said.
