California

TexasTowelie

(112,100 posts) Sun Jan 20, 2019, 08:00 AM Jan 2019

Oakland teachers hold second wildcat "sickout," call for statewide strike with Los Angeles teachers

In a demonstration of independent initiative and defiance of the state-sponsored contract negotiations process, hundreds of Oakland teachers conducted a one-day wildcat “sickout,” Friday. The majority of teachers at nine schools called in sick and picketed outside Oakland Technical High School, where students and community members joined them in solidarity.

The crowd of over 500 people marched two miles down Broadway Avenue and rallied outside Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) headquarters downtown, demanding full funding for education, a raise in teachers’ pay and the halting of all school closures.

The sickout is part of the growing international upsurge of the working class in 2019. It takes place as over 30,000 teachers are striking in Los Angeles, over 70,000 Mexican “maquiladora” workers are engaged in a wildcat strike in open defiance of their union, a general strike of 700,000 public sector workers is shaking Tunisia, and as the “Yellow Vest” protesters in France prepare for their tenth week of confrontations with the French police and state apparatus.

These struggles are a continuation and deepening of the militant struggles that took place in 2018, including the statewide wildcat strikes by teachers in West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma and other states in the US.

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/19/ousd-j19.html

2 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Oakland teachers hold second wildcat "sickout," call for statewide strike with Los Angeles teachers (Original Post) TexasTowelie Jan 2019 OP

This is the way to do it. JayhawkSD Jan 2019 #1

As a former CA teacher I say STRIKE! BigmanPigman Jan 2019 #2

JayhawkSD

(3,163 posts)

1. This is the way to do it.

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sun Jan 20, 2019, 12:13 PM

Jan 2019

I don't know the issues, except that I tend to be pro-union, so I don't know that the teachers are in the right. They probably have valid issues, workers usually do.

Anyway, when I was in the union, if another union struck we generally struck with them. Our "wildcat strikes" were by no means "in open defiance of [our] unions," however, as all unions openly hung together.

Somebody famous once said, "We must hang together or we will most certainly be hung separately."

BigmanPigman

(51,584 posts)

2. As a former CA teacher I say STRIKE!

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sun Jan 20, 2019, 04:13 PM

Jan 2019

Class sizes are huge, there is NO support staff (maybe once a week for 1,000 students) and this includes nurses, tech repair, counselors, custodians, maintenance, psychologists, 2nd lang support, secretaries, etc., non stop testing at all grades K-12 and low pay considering the cost of living. Forget about the thousands of dollars teachers pay out of pocket for supplies as well as the extra work we must do as the secretaries, custodians, and tech repair that we now have to do ourselves (if we can that is) on top of our teaching 50+ hours a week.

The first lesson that I learned as a new teacher and union rep is that schools are a business and the thing they care about is the bottom line, not the students, the parents or the teachers and the schools. It is ALL about money!

Students in CA get HALF what other students get in other states and that is ridiculous. We have tons of people and money in this progressive but expensive state but the state and cities are not giving it to the educators or the classrooms!

San Diego had a strike in the mid 90s and I was a sub who walked the picket line with them. A year later when there were job openings I was requested by the teachers/friends I stuck with during the strike and the subs who crossed the picket line were shunned by the teachers who remember these things. This is a big deal and very important.

Teachers are mostly women and that is the main reason salaries have been low compared to other higher education professions and has been this way for 100 years. Women are valued less and that has not changed at all!

Reply to this discussion