Teachers

After failing in several attempts to negotiate a 3 percent cost-of-living raise with the Rochester, N.H., city council, the local teachers' union decided that it had had enough.

So the Rochester Federation of Teachers launched an unusual protest. Earlier this summer, union members removed every piece of property that teachers had purchased with their own money for local schools. They filled moving vans with nearly 1,000 boxes of materials: books, pencils, bulletin boards, bookcases, computer equipment, games, and posters.

One small alternative school was even left without a telephone--a teacher had bought the...