The Pennsylvania School Boards Association opposes it.

Teachers unions do, too.

Even a group called StopTeacherStrikes Inc. opposes state Senate Minority Leader Robert Mellow's bill to ban teacher strikes.

But criticism hasn't deterred Mr. Mellow, D-Lackawanna, who was in Pittsburgh yesterday to promote the bill.

Senate Bill 20 would require a county's president judge to end a labor dispute before the school year begins. If the sides can't agree on a contract by Aug. 1, the judge essentially would choose one party's last best offer.

"There will be no disruption or interruption of the school year," Mr. Mellow said during a news conference at the State Office Building, Downtown, noting that Pennsylvania is one of only nine states permitting teacher strikes.

John Tarka, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said the strike is an important right that teachers use sparingly and want to preserve.

Timothy M. Allwein, the school board association's assistant executive director for governmental and member relations, called the proposal illegal. He said it would amount to binding arbitration, something the state constitution permits only for police and firefighters.

Simon Campbell, president of Bucks County-based StopTeacherStrikes Inc., said the bill is a "hoodwinking exercise" that lets Mr. Mellow play education crusader without hurting the teachers unions that have supported his campaigns. He said Mr. Mellow knows the bill, before the Senate Labor and Industry Committee, is unconstitutional and a non-starter.

This is the third time in as many legislative sessions that Mr. Mellow has attempted to ban teacher strikes. In the past, he said, colleagues beholden to the unions have kept his bill off the Senate floor.

"All I want is a vote," he said, insisting the law would be constitutional and not a form of binding arbitration. Accompanying Mr. Mellow was state Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, who said the law is needed.

Mr. Mellow said the proposal, modeled after a Connecticut program, would spare school districts and taxpayers the burden of retroactive labor agreements that can require big tax increases. He said a dispute in one school district he represents has dragged on for four years.

The bill would require a union and a school board to begin negotiations no later than Jan. 5 in the year their existing agreement expires. An impasse would be declared if no agreement is reached by April 30.

Negotiations then would be turned over to a three-person panel, with one member appointed by the school district, another by the union and a neutral chairman selected by the two sides or a judge.

By June 30, the union and district each would make a last best offer. After public hearings, the chairman would recommend one of the offers to the judge.

By Aug. 10, the judge would accept the recommended offer, making it the contract, or reject the recommendation, making the other party's offer the contract. The decision couldn't be appealed; strikes or lockouts would be illegal.

Wythe Keever, spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said the union would consider giving up the right to strike in exchange for a binding arbitration procedure it considered fair.

The union would want issues to be arbitrated individually. Mr. Keever said the "total package" approach in Mr. Mellow's bill -- selection of one offer or the other -- wasn't acceptable.

Mr. Allwein said he didn't know how Mr. Mellow's proposal would square with Act I, a new state law that requires voter approval for tax increases beyond a certain level. If a judge orders teacher raises and voters refuse to approve a tax hike to fund them, he said, the district would be in a bind.

Mr. Campbell said the state should outlaw strikes without binding arbitration or that otherwise would infringe on a school board's control of a district's finances.

There have been strikes at nine districts so far this school year, and nearly 100 other districts without teacher contracts could experience work stoppages -- numbers, Mr. Mellow said, that point to the need for the law.

But opponents said the relatively few strikes in recent years show that the 15-year-old Act 88, the current law governing teacher disputes, is working. That law allows strikes at certain times and for a certain number of days, while providing for 180 days of instruction by June 30.

Before Act 88, the state averaged 34 strikes annually during the 1970s and 20 annually during the 1980s, according to the PSEA.