Washington Judge Attempts to Crush Teachers Strike

A judge ordered 1,900 striking Tacoma, WA teachers back to work yesterday after a two-day walkout Reuters reported today. Teachers in Washington’s third largest district were striking over district attempts to reassign teachers based on evaluations, rather than seniority. Teachers are also opposing attempts to impose pay cuts and class size increases.

The school district has called the strike illegal. Apparently the judge agreed, ordering teachers back to work immediately and demanding that both sides appear in court on Friday to prove that they have complied with the order.

It is not yet clear whether the teachers will comply. Tacoma Educators Association President Andy Coons declared that the strike was officially over, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer. However, he also said he was not a dictator and that people were free to make their own choices, implying that teachers might choose to continue striking without his consent. Several teachers said they would continue to stay out.

Coons is carefully following the lead of other union leaders of the past. Ignoring the judge’s order would likely result in large fines for the union and possible jail time for its officials, including Coons. By declaring official compliance, Coons is attempting to insulate the union from legal repurcussions. However, a wildcat strike could continue and be highly effective, depending on how strong the solidarity and discipline of the teachers.

Teachers should not go back to work simply because a judge has told them to do so. The judge himself said that it is unclear whether it is illegal for public workers to strike in Washington, drawing into question the legitimacy of his ruling.

However, even if it was illegal, that should not stop the teachers. Unjust laws are meant to be disobeyed, while attacks on working conditions must be resisted, regardless of the law. Workers had to break the law in order for unions to win the right to legally exist in the first place.

Furthermore, returning to work now would give the advantage to the bosses and take away the momentum the teachers have built toward the strike. This momentum will be crucial in the coming weeks as a hearing is set for the end of the month to determine if there will be a permanent injunction against striking. The teachers will be in a much better position to resist this injunction and continue with job actions if they are already on strike than they will if they spend the next two weeks in the classroom feeling betrayed and bullied by the courts and bosses

SOS, I’ve Tripped and Can’t Come Down

Susan Ohanian summed up the SOS march pretty well in her commentary Sex, Lies and SOS. 

• Low teacher turn out
• Virtually no criticism of Obama
• Half-assed support by NEA and AFT, the former having already endorsed Obama, without asking, let alone demanding. a single thing for schools, teachers or children
• No attempt by the unions to organize or mobilize teachers to attend SOS or to strike
• No movement by unions to resist standardized tests

Bottom line: a million or even a billion teachers marching on Washington will have no effect on policy. If we want to end NCLB, increase funding, halt privatization, lower class sizes, decrease workloads and increase wages, we need to strike. We need to do it early and often. Anything short of this, and the quality of public education will continue its downward slide, along with our wages and working conditions.

Hey Liberals, Democrats Are Evil, Too

The left press and blogosphere have been ranting about the crazy, evil, greedy and/or stupid Republicans and mostly overlooking the fact that Democratic lawmakers, too, have launched a scorched earth policy against children, teachers, unions, and working people in general.

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Consider these examples reported today on the WSWS:

The Democrat-controlled Colorado senate, by a 30-5 margin, approved budget cuts of $250 million from K-12 education, which will result in massive teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, and a shortened school year. The budget also guts higher education and Medicaid, while canceling a $3 million nutrition program for poor children. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper initially called for $375 million in cuts to K-12 education, but agreed to reduced education cuts in exchange for bigger tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Keep in mind, Colorado’s six billionaires with a combined wealth of $20.3 billion, more than 20 times Colorado’s entire $988 million deficit, have no need for a tax break.

Washington State, with a Democrat governor and Democrat-controlled senate and house, approved a budget that slashes $2 billion from public education, cuts pay for state workers and teachers by 3%, and strips funding from “underperforming” schools. Their budget saves an additional $1.2 billion by refusing to fund a voter-approved program to increase teacher pay and decrease class sizes. Washington is also planning to cut $530 million from higher education, which would cause tuition to increase by 16% at universities and 12% at community colleges. The budget also imposes furloughs and cuts funding for Medicaid. Washington’s six billionaires have a combined net worth of nearly $100 billion, which is 25 times the state’s budget deficit.

Or consider these examples:

California has a Democrat governor and Democrat-controlled state house and senate. Yet they are proposing to close their $25 billion budget gap by slashing $1.4 billion from higher education and $4 billion from k-12 education, according to the CTA. Additionally, Reuters and CNN report that the proposed budget would cut wages by 10% for many unionized state employees, while slashing Medi-Cal by $1.7 billion, Welfare-to-Work by $1.5 billion, and $705 million from the agency serving people with developmental disabilities. Yet, if just the richest 19 residents paid 10% more in taxes, the state’s $25 billion deficit would be completely erased.  California has 80 billionaires, or 20% of Forbes’ richest Americans.

In New York, Democratic Governor Cuomo has proposed a budget plan calling for nearly 9,800 layoffs. The plan also calls for massive cuts to K-12 education (7.3%) and health care, in addition to 10% cuts to colleges and universities, reported NBC news. Additionally, CNN said that state agencies will have their budgets slashed by 20%. New York City, alone, has 58 billionaires who, together have so much wealth they could erase the State’s budget deficit without even noticing a change in their bank accounts.

In Maryland, Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley, who ran a pro-education and pro-labor campaign, and the Democrat-controlled state legislature, are now considering cuts to education and the state work force, according to the Baltimore Sun. Under the plan, current employees would have to increase their pension contributions by 25%, (7% of their pay), or they could opt to continue contributing about 5.6% of their pay, but would risk decreased benefits. WaPo reports that new employees would have no choice and their early retirement age would be raised from 55 to 60. Daily Censored says that $94 million will be cut from k-12 education, with $15 of it coming entirely from Baltimore City Schools.

Connecticut’s Democratic Governor, Dan Malloy, has pitted unions against the cities, basing his budget almost entirely on union concessions worth $1 billion over the next two years, according to CBS news. If the unions refuse to accept the cuts, he has threatened to slash state funding for cities. Hearst Connecticut Newspapers says that the losses to cities could be as much as $67 million for Bridgeport, $10.4 million from Danbury, $4.9 million Stamford, $1.8 million from Greenwich, and $5 million from Norwalk.