QUINCY, Mass. -- For the first time in 20 years, Quincy teachers have voted to strike. Teachers from the city's 19 schools started picketing at 6 a.m. Friday.

NewsCenter 5's Steve Lacy reported that classes for all of the city's 11,000 public school students were canceled on Friday.

The decision to strike came after teachers failed to reach an agreement over increased health care payments. Currently, they pay 10 percent of their health care costs, but said with a sizable raise, they would be willing to go as high as 20 percent phased in during the next four years.

"They are not mitigating at all with any of us on the salary things, so that, in fact, what we are ending up with is a pay cut," said Paul Phillips of the Quincy Education Association.

The city offered teachers a 13 percent pay increase during the next four years.

"What attracts a teacher to Quincy is that the schools are wonderful, the teachers are great, the benefits. And the system was bragging about the benefits when a candidate came here," Phillips said.

The teachers' union will meet in Boston on Friday to discuss the strike. It is illegal in Massachusetts for public employees to strike, and the city was seeking an injunction to force the teachers back to work.

The city's mayor, whose brother is a teacher, has recused himself from negotiations. He called the issue of rising health care costs "troubling."

"Our taxpayers, very few of them, receive similar benefits," Mayor William Phelan said.

Despite reaching an impasse, Quincy Schools Superintendent Richard DeCristofaro said he is confident that a deal can be reached. The city's teachers have been working without a contract since August.

"I think that we will get to a point that we are on very mutual ground, as we have been for so many years, and continue to serve our students," he said.

So far, parents and residents support the teachers.

"I think it is great because they have been without a contract for a year," parent Evelyn McDonald said.

"Nobody appreciates teachers and I think they should get what they deserve," one Quincy resident said.

"I think they deserve an increase in health benefits and so forth. It is something that they can't afford to lose," another Quincy resident said.

Any school days missed during the strike will have to be made up at the end of the academic year.