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What you need to know about the Oakland teacher strike [1]

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Date: 2023-05-12

It is important to add context to how we got here. The long-standing issue of charter school infiltration felt around the country is very present in Oakland. That infiltration includes billionaires spending money to privatize schools and lavish donations on charter-friendly school board candidates. This is done in service of creating publicly funded schools that are privately controlled, with less transparency and no union representation. A tragic and frightening example of what billionaire Koch brother money can do can be seen in New Orleans, where as of 2018, the entire public school system is run by charters.

In 2019, the Oakland teachers union authorized a work stoppage that lasted one week in order to get a contract negotiated. And while they got some concessions, there were glaring omissions on issues like increased nurse staffing (Oakland Unified employs around 22 nurses to care for more than 37,000 students). It is also important to understand that Oakland teachers worked for seven months without a contract, with the district repeatedly canceling negotiating sessions and sending negotiators who had no authority to make actual decisions regarding the contracts they were ostensibly working on.

Oakland Unified officials argue that they have offered a “historic” salary increase of 22%. Two things to note here: This “historic” raise proposal seems to be one that might only reach “some teachers” (and by “some,” the district means 44% of them). And is it really “historic” if a higher 22.9% raise to all teachers would still only put Oakland educators at 13th place among the 22 largest districts in the state? Just asking. District officials certainly aren’t trumpeting the fact that this proposed raise would come with an increase in work hours and lost prep time, which would also increase the amount of out-of-class time teachers would spend working. You don’t need to go to elementary school to understand that if I tell you I’m going to pay you a little bit more but make you work longer hours, I’m not really paying you more.

The use of the word “historic” might better apply to the skyrocketing costs of living and housing in Oakland. You can look at a lot of metrics but the results are always the same: It is outrageously more expensive to live in Oakland these days. Trust me, I live here.

But district and anti-labor forces have focused their attacks on the union’s demands that “common good” proposals addressing issues like racial equity, social justice, and the environment be a part of the negotiations. District officials claim these proposals are not something that can be negotiated in a teacher’s contract or as part of a school district’s budget. But they can and have been negotiated into contracts with teachers in Chicago and Los Angeles. District leaders and anti-labor groups have accused the teachers union of asking for things like “Black student reparations,” which they say is language that cannot be in a labor contract. But those aren’t exactly the “common goods” the district is balking at.

The union is asking the district to commit to things like:

Addressing issues that make schools unsafe

Fixing leaky roofs

Making sure the water at schools is safe to drink

Supporting Black Thriving Community Schools (something Oakland Unified agreed to in 2021 but has not followed through on)

Working with the teachers union to figure out ways to get housing for 1,500 homeless students in the school district. This is not a demand that the district build housing, but it does include discussing plans for vacant buildings owned by the district.

An example of this could be seen in the testimonials from parents and educators at a Thursday Oakland City Council committee hearing. From KQED:

OUSD teacher Edgar Sanchez, whose daughter attends United for Success Academy, told council members of the school’s rodent problems and “the issue of the sewage coming into the classroom.” “They’ve been asking for that to be fixed for a year and a half,” he said.

How Oakland Unified spends the $85 million in grants it has received from the California Community Schools funds is a large part of the “common good” part of the negotiations. The union says the funds are supposed to be controlled by parents and educators, along with school district administrators.

As of Thursday, district officials have pivoted to the less transparently racist position that the problem is words like “reparations.” They say union demands are too expensive and teachers are asking for the school district to fix “broad societal issues.” District officials also claim that the union’s demands would cost $1 billion, while the teachers union claims the cost would be $500,000. That’s quite a discrepancy.

I would be remiss not to mention that the Oakland NAACP came out with a statement calling for an end to the strike, but before feeling any ambivalence about this, note it’s almost identical to the California Policy Center’s statement (a Koch-brother-funded right-wing think tank that masquerades as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization).

And that language also mirrors the anti-union propaganda that was used in the 2019 Oakland Unified contract negotiations—the results of which have brought us to today.

The union’s response to the NAACP’s version of the California Policy Center’s statement came from first vice president Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, who said, “As an educator, a Black mother of OUSD students, and a member of the NAACP, I am proud to belong to a community that overwhelmingly supports the OEA strike for racially just community schools.”

The Oakland Unified School Board, which has some members who support teachers and some who are less supportive, canceled its Wednesday meeting. Some might call it a bit of cowardice while others might call it … a bit of cowardice. But here we are.

Nobody is happy to be on strike, and educators are not happy to be picketing in the streets instead of teaching in their classrooms. But it’s Oakland Unified officials who continue to increase the allotment of many millions of dollars to pay consultants—even while steadfastly claiming they have major budget cuts to make.

RELATED STORIES:

22 nurses for 37,000 kids: Oakland’s teacher strike grows as nurses, social workers join the fight

Chicago teachers are facing down big money and political power to fight for better schools

Public education is a labor issue, even if you don't care about teachers

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/12/2168790/-What-you-need-to-know-about-the-Oakland-teacher-strike

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