https://themilitant.com/2019/01/26/los-angeles-teachers-won-with-broad-strike-support/
Los Angeles teachers won with broad strike support
Fight inspires teachers in Denver, Virginia, Oakland
By Deborah Liatos
and Bernie Senter
Vol. 83/No. 5
February 4, 2019
Teachers picket Dorsey High School in Los Angeles Jan. 17 before strike
settled. Capitalist rulers there underestimated widespread support
teachers strike got from working people.
Militant/Thabo Ntweng
Teachers picket Dorsey High School in Los Angeles Jan. 17 before strike
settled. Capitalist rulers there underestimated widespread support
teachers strike got from working people.
LOS ANGELES — A spirited and popular six-day strike by more than 30,000
teachers here ended Jan. 22 after a majority voted to approve a new
contract. Teachers won widespread support from students, parents and
other workers as they demonstrated their determination to address
decades of deteriorating conditions in the schools.
Los Angeles is the second largest school district in the country, with
600,000 students and 1,000 schools. The contract expired in 2017.
The new contract gives the teachers a 6 percent pay raise. A reduction
in class size for some subjects will be phased in over a number of
years. Three hundred full-time nurses will be hired over the next two
years to ensure every school is staffed five days a week, as well as
full-time teacher librarians for every secondary school.
“There’s still a lot of work to do,” physical education teacher Rosanne
Altin told the Militant in front of Los Angeles High School, where she
had organized the voting by teachers on the contract. Altin is chapter
chairperson of the United Teachers Los Angeles union at the school.
“The class-size reduction is only for math and English classes, not
social studies. I was expecting it to be more significant and
comprehensive,” she said. “But it’s been a unifying, fun and exciting week.”
Special education teacher Christina Lewis said, “We couldn’t get
everything this time around. It’s a start. There’s an awakening now.”
Teachers in Los Angeles review proposed contract before vote after
six-days on strike Jan. 22.
Militant/Norton Sandler
Teachers in Los Angeles review proposed contract before vote after
six-days on strike Jan. 22.
The capitalist rulers, and their representatives in City Hall and the
school district, badly underestimated the teachers’ determination and
the degree of public support by working people for the strike.
Large numbers of teachers picketed in front of schools to a cacophony of
drivers honking support; neighbors brought coffee and food and opened
their homes; and parents and students swelled the picket lines. They
converged downtown by the tens of thousands in several rallies and
marches. “We studied the West Virginia and Oklahoma teacher strikes last
year,” Altin said. “They paved the way for our movement.”
The successful nine-day strike by teachers and other school workers in
West Virginia last spring gave an impetus to a wave of strikes and
protests in Arizona, Kentucky, Oklahoma and other states. These actions
gave more confidence to teachers here and elsewhere.
One teacher’s sign at a large Jan. 18 rally said, “¡El Maestro luchando
también está enseñando!” (The teacher fighting is also teaching!)
The school board kept the schools open with administrators and
substitutes. But few parents brought their children to school. By the
fourth day of the strike only 17 percent of students showed up.
“Teachers stood strong and supported each other,” Thomas Howard, a sixth
grade teacher at John Muir Middle School, said at another big rally Jan.
21. “We did it for the students currently in school and the ones in the
future. I was a student in 1989 and I remember the teachers’ strike
then, and now I’m a teacher.”
Dennis Richter, Socialist Workers Party candidate for L.A. City Council,
joins teachers protest Jan. 18 during strike.
Militant/Thabo Ntweng
Dennis Richter, Socialist Workers Party candidate for L.A. City Council,
joins teachers protest Jan. 18 during strike.
The strike began Jan. 14 after more than 21 months of negotiating
between United Teachers and the Los Angeles Unified School District
broke down. In addition to higher wages, the union demanded smaller
class sizes and schools that are fully staffed with librarians,
full-time nurses and more counselors. They also demanded a cap on
privately run charter schools.
School district superintendent Austin Beutner claimed the district could
not meet the teachers’ demands because of “budget problems.” But the
union pointed out that the school board is sitting on a cash reserve of
$1.86 billion.
Responding to worsening conditions in the public schools, many L.A.
residents have put their kids in charter schools. A fifth of all
students now attend charters, which are publicly funded but privately
run. Most are nonunion. The settlement says the board will consider
asking the state government to put a cap on charters.
Strike gets widespread support
“I’m in the marching band and about 15 of us go out to the picket line
to hype them up,” 17-year-old Theodore Roosevelt High School student
Miguel Rosas told the Militant at the Jan. 18 rally. “I’m proud of my
teachers for doing what they believe in and for the students.”
In the last few days of the strike Service Employees International Union
Local 99 members at 10 schools had voted to begin walking off the job
for one or more days to support the strike.
Teachers’ fights are brewing in other areas. Virginia Educators United
are building a statewide march and rally at the Capitol in Richmond Jan.
28. Teachers in the Bay Area have been meeting and organizing protests.
And the teachers in Denver, Colorado, announced Jan. 22 they had voted
by 93 percent to authorize a strike after negotiations failed. This
would be the first teachers strike there in 25 years.
Related Articles
‘Don’t make us go West Virginia on you!’
In the light of the strike by teachers in Los Angeles and upcoming
battles by teachers in other cities and states, we print below an
excerpt from In Defense of the US Working Class by Mary-Alice Waters.
Copyright © 2019 Pathfinder…
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Los Angeles teachers won with broad strike support
•UK capitalist rulers ‘Brexit’ political crisis continues on
•Florida voting rights victory spurs fights in Iowa, Kentucky
•SWP Dallas campaign attracts working-class interest in Texas
•Liberal, FBI anti-Trump ‘resistance’ is a threat to working people’s rights
Feature Articles •José Ramón Fernández: Revolutionary of exemplary integrity
Also In This Issue •Chicago cop who killed Laquan McDonald gets prison
•SWP takes books, ‘Militant’ broadly to working people
•Readers contribute to winter appeal for ‘Militant’
•An Unconditional Soldier of the Revolution
•‘Don’t make us go West Virginia on you!’
Books of the Month •Jew-hatred incited by capitalist rulers in times of
crisis
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Corrections
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Jules Verne
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nothing to them. ”
― Jules Verne
