The Davis Unit of UAW 2865 passed the following statement around the ongoing Oakland teachers strike at today’s Monthly Membership Meeting:
The strike of 3,000 Oakland teachers for better working conditions is, at the same time, a strike for their students to have a safe and quality education.
Oakland teachers are following the example of teachers’ unions in Los Angeles, West Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, and Oklahoma, all of whom have gone on strike in this past year to save public education. The Oakland strike is about immediate needs – fair pay to keep up with the rising cost of housing, more nurses and counselors for students, smaller class sizes, and no more budget cuts. However, the teachers are also fighting against the ongoing corporatization of education by private charter schools and Oakland Unified School District’s plans to close up to 24 schools in the next few years.
We, the Davis unit of the UC Student-Workers Union UAW 2865, encourage students across California at all levels of education to stand up for their own future and their rights as students by supporting the Oakland teachers strike. There has already been student walkouts in Oakland, as there was in Los Angeles in solidarity with strike there. We encourage students across California to walkout as well, and for our members to join the resulting actions.
We live in a moment of worldwide rebellion led by youth. Just this month (February), thousands of students in the UK walked out and blocked roads to call for action on climate change. In Haiti, young men and women are pushing forward protests against politicians’ looting of public funds. Last year, in Oaxaca, Mexico thousands of students in the state’s teacher-training colleges went on strike against curriculum changes prioritizing English over Indigenous languages. Whatever the specific issue in any struggle, the answer is the same: students and workers unite!
They omitted “runny dog lackeys”.
Why I hate ‘unions’ in the public sector. ‘Professional’ public employees should not “strike” unless it to avoid a ‘clear and present danger’ to the public, from what they are instructed to do. Just my view.
Unions tell their members that when the ‘leaders’ say “strike”, they “strike”… if they go to work anyhow, they are called “scabs”… and worse… and get blackballed… but they damn sure have to keep paying dues to the union, lest the union demands their termination from employment.
I don’t really understand why you believe public employees should not have the power to strike?