Rouge Forum Dispatch: Sole Focus–Mayday and the School Worker Spring!
We Say Fight Back!
Above, educator Irene T!
NPR/Ipsos Poll: Most Americans Support Teachers’ Right To Strike
As the wave of teacher walkouts moves to Arizona and Colorado this week, an NPR/Ipsos poll shows strong support among Americans for improving teachers’ pay and for their right to strike.
Just 1 in 4 Americans believe teachers in this country are paid fairly. Nearly two-thirds approve of national teachers’ unions, and three-quarters agree teachers have the right to strike. That last figure includes two-thirds of Republicans, three-quarters of independents and nearly 9 in 10 Democrats.
“Our teachers have not been able to have raises for the last several years and I’m certain it’s the same issue that’s going on around the country,” said Marla Hackett of Queen Creek, Ariz., who responded to the survey and said she has a daughter who is a teacher. “They are underappreciated, underpaid and they work ridiculously long hours.”
Just over 1,000 Americans were surveyed in the second week of April, when teachers were marching in several mostly red states.
Arizona, where Hackett lives, is one of the latest states where teachers are walking off the job in protest of low pay and inadequate school funding, after Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia. Colorado teachers, too, have scheduled demonstrations, and schools are closing this Thursday and Friday. www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/26/604117045/npr-ipsos-poll-most-americans-support-teachers-right-to-strike?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180426
www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/10158283286631509/
UCSD Service Workers Plan 3-Day Strike Amid Stalled Talks
The union representing more than 25,000 University of California service workers and medical technicians announced plans Thursday for a three-day strike, citing what it calls stalled contract negotiations.
Officials with AFSCME Local 3299 said last week that more than 97 percent of its members had voted to authorize a strike if no progress was made in negotiations. UC officials, however, said the union had rejected an offer of “fair, multiyear wage increases and excellent medical and retirement benefits.”
In light of the impasse, the university system imposed contract terms on the union for the 2017-18 fiscal year, including 2 percent pay increases. The UC’s latest contract offer to the union had included annual 3 percent raises over the next four years, according to the university.
The union on Thursday issued a 10-day notice of their intent to conduct a three-day strike, beginning May 7, at campuses including UC San Diego.
“We’ve bargained in good faith for over a year to address the widening income, racial and gender disparities that front-line, low-wage workers at UC are living every day,” said AFSCME Local 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “Instead of joining us in the effort to arrest these trends, UC has insisted on deepening them — leaving workers no option but to strike.”
UC officials issued a statement saying they “strongly disagree with AFSCME’s decision to strike, which will negatively impact patients, students and the UC community.”
“AFSCME service employees at UC — including custodians, gardeners, food service workers and facilities maintenance staff — are compensated at or above the market and in some cases, but as much as 17 percent higher than comparable jobs, according to the university. What the union demanded was a 6 percent annual wage increase, which we think unfair to other UC employees, both represented and non-represented. This is twice what other UC employees have received.”
University officials said their final officer included, in addition to the pay raises, a lump-sum payment upon contract ratification, health benefits consistent with those of other workers and continuation of pension benefits for existing employees. New employees would be given a choice between a pension or 401(K)-style retirement plan.
Lybarger, however, accused the university of “subverting” the bargaining process by imposing contract terms on workers.
“Administrators are already showing us that we can expect more unequal treatment if we don’t stand up, fight back and hold UC accountable to its hollow claims of `pioneering a better future,’” Lybarger said.
According to the union, the strike will involve 9,000 service workers, joined by more than 15,000 Patient Care Technical workers.
The union represents workers such as security guards, groundskeepers, custodians, respiratory therapists, nursing aides and surgical technicians. The workers span UC’s 10 campuses, five medical centers, numerous clinics and research laboratories, according to the union.
UC Nurses are voting for a sympathy strike to stand w/ our @AFSCMELocal3299 sisters & brothers, who last week voted with a 97% majority to authorize a strike. Solidarity is a verb! #14kstrong #3299Strong
Las Vegas teachers, fed up with how their dues are being spent, voted overwhelmingly late Wednesday to cut all ties with their state and national parent unions.
The vote by the members of the Clark County Education Association, which represents almost 20,000 teachers in the Las Vegas area, is a significant loss to the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union.
It devastates the NEA’s Nevada affiliate, the Nevada State Education Association, as the Clark County local makes up half the membership of the entire state. The national NEA now has a $2 million hole in its budget for this year, and it will also need to send money to the state affiliate, which won’t be able to sustain itself and will likely see staff layoffs.
The NEA also has now lost political influence in Nevada, considered a swing state, in a pivotal election year. Clark County teachers had long been frustrated with the political endorsements of the state and national unions.
But for teachers in Clark County, whose only interaction is with their local union, little will change — except for lower dues.
The disaffiliation vote by secret ballot — 87.6 percent in favor — will allow CCEA to reduce annual member dues from $810 to $510. The local union will pick up the added responsibility of providing liability insurance to members but will otherwise incur few additional expenses.
Indicating that the NEA expected to lose the vote, it announced late Wednesday that it has formed a new local in Las Vegas, the National Education Association of Southern Nevada. However, the CCEA remains the exclusive representative for bargaining with the Clark County School District. It will operate independently and instantly became the largest independent teacher union in the nation.