West Coast Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committees
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/02/09/west-f09.html
8 February 2021
The Los Angeles, San Diego and Northern California Educators
Rank-and-File Safety Committees across the West Coast fully support the
demand of Chicago educators to keep schools closed during the pandemic.
Across the country, as thousands of people die every day, there is a
bipartisan push to reopen schools against all medical science. The
statement of the Chicago Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee
“Keeping Chicago schools closed during the pandemic is not negotiable!”
points the way forward to workers everywhere.
Teachers, parents and children march in the Brooklyn borough of New York
to protest the reopening of city public schools amid the threat of a
teachers strike, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark
Lennihan)
The conscious decision of the local, state and federal governments to
pursue a policy of “herd immunity” through mass infection has created an
entirely preventable health catastrophe. Initial lockdown measures were
conducted without the necessary financial support to workers and small
businesses to make them effective. Then they were removed without any
plan for long-term containment, condemning hundreds of thousands more to
die during the December and January surges. In California, daily average
deaths quadrupled to 540 in January and have only modestly dropped to 480.
The City of San Francisco has taken the unprecedented step of suing
their own school board for not having “sufficient” plans to reopen in
January as hospitals have filled during a surge of the pandemic. There
is no safe way to resume in-person instruction until the pandemic is
contained. While there is community spread, opening schools will only
exacerbate the crisis.
There is growing pressure to reopen schools as quickly as possible in
Los Angeles, San Diego and other major school districts across
California. After City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the San Francisco
school district, the local teachers union negotiated a deal to herd
teachers and students back into unsafe classrooms in the coming weeks.
In Salt Lake City, Utah, schools reopened on Monday after the Salt Lake
City School Board voted 6 to 1 to reopen all grades including high
school. In Washington and Oregon, many districts throughout the rural
and suburban regions have already reopened with some form of hybrid or
in-person instruction, claiming that vaccinating some teachers will make
it “safe.” Portland and Seattle school district leaders are developing a
phased reopening plan that will begin as early as March.
Throughout the world, dozens of governments are pursuing the same
homicidal policy as in the US, placing profits before lives and pushing
to keep schools open. Whether it is Boris Johnson in the UK, Bolsonaro
in Brazil, the Grand Coalition of the Social Democrats and Christian
Democratic Union in Germany, the Macron government in France, or
elsewhere, the policy is the same.
The conscious decision of these governments to allow mass infections has
undermined any effort to contain the pandemic. As the virus spreads it
continues to evolve, resulting in more contagious and deadly variants of
COVID-19 emerging in Britain, South Africa, Brazil and California.
Further infections increase the chance that variants resistant to the
newly developed vaccines will emerge.
Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation, recently stated, “There are serious concerns that with the
spread of new COVID-19 variants, achieving herd immunity necessary to
end the pandemic may be difficult if not impossible, but we may be able
to bring COVID-19 under control if we continue to focus on the
strategies that can keep transmission low—avoiding gatherings, wearing
masks, and other measures—while working to get as many people vaccinated
as possible.”
Study after study demonstrates that school children can very effectively
spread the disease to school staff and their families and that closing
school sites is among the most effective interventions to reduce spread.
Keeping instruction remote is essential to saving lives and containing
the pandemic.
As in Chicago, educators on the West Coast confront unions that promote
the fiction of a safe return to schools during the pandemic. The
California Teachers Association (CTA), Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) and others have issued a shameful document that agrees in
principle to resume in-person instruction while positivity rates remain
as high as 8 percent. As a condition they call on the legislature to
prioritize school workers for vaccination. How wretched!
Reopening schools is dangerous for students, families, and by increasing
the rate of infection, the community at large. Educators cannot agree to
send more people to the hospital, ICU and morgue just because they offer
to make us personally safe.
The exact same politicians who have for decades starved the public
schools of desperately needed funds are now claiming that children are
suffering under remote learning.
Even where schools have reopened there has been no return to normal
under the pandemic. Major districts that have returned like New York
City are regularly quarantining sites to contain new outbreaks. Instead
of providing students a steady environment, they are bouncing back and
forth between open and closed. Districts opening under a hybrid model
have placed an unbearable workload on teachers, preventing the kind of
focused attention that students need to succeed.
California hosts a high concentration of wealth and billionaires, the
second highest number of Fortune 500 companies, and Elon Musk, who has
become the richest person in the world. The wealth exists to fund
quality online instruction, social support and financial assistance for
workers and small business owners during the shutdowns.
We call on educators across the region to join and help build our
rank-and-file committees to prepare a general strike to shut down
schools and nonessential workplaces while demanding full compensation
for all workers and the resources needed to quickly vaccinate the
population, address the critical social needs of students and parents,
and provide high-quality remote learning until the pandemic is under
control.
Endorsed by:
Northern CA Rank-and-File Safety Committee
San Diego Rank-and-File Safety Committee
Los Angeles Rank-and-File Safety Committee
Bilingual teachers from Oregon Willamette valley
Psychotherapist from Pierce County
Retired elementary teacher from Long Beach USD
Worker from Riverside County
Nurse from Lakewood, California
Substitute Teacher from Stanislaus County, California
Engineer from Santa Clara County, California
Child-care worker from Seattle, Washington
Teacher from Utah
Join the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee!
We are building a network of rank-and-file educators, students, parents,
and workers to stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives.
FIND OUT MORE
READ MORE
Vote “No” on the CTU-CPS plan to reopen Chicago schools! Saving lives is
non-negotiable!
8 February 2021
Chicago Teachers Union endorses a bargain with death, agrees to
in-person classes
8 February 2021
State and local government, mass media mount all-out blitz to reopen Los
Angeles schools
8 February 2021
Philadelphia educators to defy district, maintain all-virtual schooling
Monday
8 February 2021
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Find out more about these topics:
Statements of rank-and-file committeesEducationGlobal class struggleThe
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STATEMENTS OF RANK-AND-FILE COMMITTEES
Stop the criminal coronavirus policy of the corporations and trade
unions! Prepare a European-wide general strike!
The Network of Action Committees for Safe Workplaces fights against mass
sackings, dangerous working conditions and the cover-up of the infection
figures.
Statement by the Network of Action Committees for Safe Workplaces in
Germany•11 February 2021
London bus workers denounce Facebook censorship: “Hands off the WSWS!”
A resolution protesting Facebook censorship of the World Socialist Web
Site and Socialist Equality Party has been received from the London Bus
Rank-and-File Committee, along with statements of support from bus drivers.
our reporters•9 February 2021
Faurecia Gladstone parts workers in Indiana support Chicago teachers
The Rank-and-File Safety Committee at the Faurecia Gladstone plant in
Columbus, Indiana, has issued the following statement in support of the
Chicago teachers.
Faurecia Gladstone Rank-and-File Safety Committee•8 February 2021
Stop the deadly reopening of Nashville schools!
Without teachers developing their own independent organizations to fight
against school reopenings, the pressure from state officials and school
boards will force them into unsafe and potentially deadly working
conditions.
Tennessee Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee•9 February 2021
Alabama teachers to Chicago teachers: We must stand united!
Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee•9 February 2021
Philadelphia educators to defy district, maintain all-virtual schooling
Monday
Douglas Lyons, Samuel Davidson•8 February 2021
Michigan educators call for unity with Chicago educators in fight to
close schools
Michigan Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee•7 February 2021
Sri Lankan educators' safety committee salutes Chicago teachers
Teacher-Student-Parent Rank and File Safety Committee statement (Sri
Lanka)•7 February 2021
Unite with Chicago teachers to save lives and prepare a general strike!
Zac Corrigan•5 February 2021
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