Oakland Teachers: VOTE NO on the Tentative Agreement!

Our Strike Is Strong! We Are Close to Victory!

Don’t Abandon the Struggle: We Are Winning!

We made a promise to the community of Oakland that we will stand up for public education. We have massive support in our fight to keep that promise. We cannot give-up now. We are so close to victory. 97% of students and their families are honoring the strike by staying out of school, and we have overwhelming participation of OEA members out on strike.

If we reject this TA and continue to hold strong, we have an historic opportunity to put an end to the entire period of attacks on students, teachers, and public education. A victory in Oakland will alter the balance of power in favor of teachers and public education across the state. Coming on the heels of the LA strike, a victorious Oakland strike will inspire and embolden teachers across California and will make clear to politicians that they must end the attacks on public education and provide the financing our students and communities have needed for so long.

We are doing what the community has wanted for years. We are standing up for public education and for the young people of Oakland, and we are making it impossible for the school board to maintain the charade that they represent Oakland. The teachers speak for the students and community. The problem we face if we sign this TA is that we have deserted the battlefield when we are winning.

This TA offers far less than what we can win. Over the last week, the OEA Bargaining Team met with the District behind closed doors and members knew next to nothing at all about what was going on. There was growing concern among teachers on the line because everyone knows that if they were fighting for our demands they would have something to say. Members knew something was wrong. We now see what it is. The TA is a deception that has been cobbled together to try to fool us. What the Bargaining Team was doing was trying to figure out how to package the OUSD Administration’s position in a way that could be sold to OEA members. They couldn’t report on that, so we got platitudes instead.

The OEA Representative Council was split on the TA, narrowly passing a recommendation for it by a vote of 53 to 50. The membership needs to take matters into our own hands — reject this TA and send the Bargaining Team back to the table, and demand that this time they put their energy into fighting with OUSD management not in trying to fool us. The points in this TA that are trumpeted as huge gains are in fact smoke and mirrors:

The salary increase is a scam. The OEA came nowhere near its goal of a 12% raise over 3 years. Before the strike, the District was only offering a 5% raise over a three-year contract. In this TA, the District is still offering only 5% for the first three years of the contract. This TA is a 3 year plus one-year contract—effectively a four-year contract. We get 3% starting in January of this year (no retro for the years we were without a contract – just a “bonus”) and only 2% next year (2019/20) for a total of 5%. The last 6% of the trumpeted increase only takes effect in the newly added 4th year of the contract – 3.5% in January, 2021 and 2.5% literally in the last minute of the contract in June 2021. This is the definition of deception. The actual money in members’ paychecks remains nearly what it was before our massive strike. We can win far more.

The class-size reduction is utterly insufficient. Most members have to wait two and a half years for any reduction in class size maximums at all; and then it’s just a one-student reduction in the final year of the contract – the 2021-22 school year. There is a one-student class size reduction next year in some schools, but many of them are on the school closure list. Instead of a real improvement in the actual learning conditions for students and teachers in the classroom, the class-size reduction is a deception which will be barely felt at all.

A resolution by School Board President Aimee Eng calling for “a 5 month pause on school closures and consolidations and more community input in the process.” The “process” continues with a 5 month pause (if the Eng Resolution even passes), but with the OEA now part of an Ad-Hoc Committee on advising how to do school closings. This is worse than nothing! July is when the Board loves to do closings anyway. We do not want to have the OEA in a coalition with the completely discredited school board to make the closings more “transparent”. Keep our schools open. We can stop school closings if we continue our strike.

Another resolution by Aimee Eng calling for a local charter school moratorium. Again, even if this passes it means next to nothing. The unprecedented power of our strike cannot be wasted on getting Aimee Eng to write a couple of school board resolutions.

There is nothing for Nurses, except what the Nurses Caucus has repeatedly said they don’t want – a bonus and a little more pay. This will not solve the problem of massive caseloads for nurses. Psychologists do not get the cap on Initial IEP Evaluations that has been a main priority for them. Special Education does not get hard-caps on SDC class-size or guarantees of additional staffing, which are critical to halting the ongoing attacks on students and teachers in Special Education programs. The various language changes in the student service sections are again designed for publicity, not real gains in the classrooms and schools.

Our strike has the power to stop the attacks on public education and force the state of California to massively increase funding to public education. We can be the model and inspiration for teachers’ struggles, including strike action, that can stop the attacks public education that have gone on for the last 20 years. We can stop school closings and charters. We can defend special education and win a massive increase in support staff. We need to stand strong on that promise and reject this TA. If we do that we will prove to the city, state, and nation that Oakland teachers are more committed than ever to winning our strike by winning a decisive victory for public education that can shift the balance of power back toward teachers and students, and away from the enemies of public education.

By rejecting this TA we prove to Oakland, to California, and to the nation that teachers are fed-up with the attacks on our members and students are more resolved than ever to win a decisive victory. We must not let the politicians constrain what we win. We don’t have to. We need to fight until the state of California provides a massive increase in funding for public education in California. By voting NO on this TA we send the message that our strike is not under the control of the politicians–that is a mass civil rights movement for public education and that teachers and students are serious about winning our demands – that our union is strong.

The fact that the Oakland strike is happening and is so strong is of enormous importance, not just for Oakland, but for the part it plays in building the movement of teachers nationally to take control of public education. In reality, the teachers’ struggle under Trump is the most important form of mass resistance to Trump and his entire vision of America.

Reject the TA and continue to fight. In a few more days of striking we can win far more.

EON/BAMN flyers and resolutions