On L.A. Teachers Strike

(Letter)

3 April 2019

To Workers Vanguard

In “Blue” California, Los Angeles was the latest flashpoint for privatization of public education. Nationally Democrats (Elizabeth Warren, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) expended much hot air “supporting” LA teachers. The Democrats cast themselves defenders of the “middle class”, but as the “lesser evil” uphold capitalist rule for Wall Street over the working class.

The LA Times references ex-Mayor and Democrat, Antonio Villaraigosa, (UCLA MEChA Alumni) as “a staunch supporter” of Charters. In the 2018 Primaries for governor he was backed by business and philanthropic Charter supporters with $22.5 million. The Times noted Villaraigosa was “A one-time union organizer”, but to clarify, he was a UTLA organizer in the 1989 teachers strike. UTLA’s Wayne Johnson called the strike despite pressure against this due to end-of-year grading/graduation. In 2010, Mayor Villaraigosa sought control over LA Unified and chose billionaire Austin Beutner as “Jobs Czar” for 13 city departments, labeling UTLA “an unyielding obstruction to education reforms.” From the start Charters openly discriminated against inner-city and Special Needs students. Education historian, Diane Ravitch, wrote in the LA Times, “Charter Schools are ‘public’ when it is time to claim public funding, but they have claimed in federal court and before the National Labor Relations Board to be private corporations when their employees seek the protection of state labor laws.”

In this year’s strike LA’s Democratic “progressives” took a side...with LAUSD! LA Times “Features” writer, and hipster, Gustavo Arellano, cited the “fact-finding panel” which countered UTLA’s demands to ooze his anti-working class cynicism, “‘How about be happy you’re getting a raise, let alone a retroactive one?’ screamed what remains of Southern California’s working class.” In an Op-Ed Antonia Hernández, ex-president of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, stated, “Elected officials, along with civic, business and philanthropic leaders, need to put pressure on both the school district and the teachers union to resolve their differences and avert this strike.” Termed out LA County Supervisor, Gloria Molina, with a shady past in East LA commercial real estate and being “for the people” wrote, if families were at the negotiating table, “I’m certain they would say they don’t want a strike.”

These “Friends of Labor” smelled blood without a unified District-wide union. UTLA stands apart from SEIU Local 99, representing 30,000 Teacher Assistants, janitors, cafeteria workers, school bus drivers. Leaning on separate contract expiration dates the pro-Democratic Party union bureaucrats, and the bosses, pit the work force against each other. The current settlement caused much frustration, with one teacher posting, “I stood out in the rain for 5 days to get this anemic contract!”

In the 1989 teachers strike Local 99 had union school bus drivers transport scab “substitute teachers” to school sites! Driver resistance led the union leadership to back away from this, but they had drivers deliver students, go into schools, watch the kids, and be under supervision of principals, i.e., continue scabbing! Rather than UTLA organize TA’s, Local 99, to its credit, organized the TA’s in the 1989/90 period. In the 2019 strike Local 99 again directed members to cross picket lines. Individual school sites could “petition” to join the strike. Over a dozen schools joined UTLA standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the picket lines, exhibiting a model of union solidarity! Independence of the working population from the parties of capital can break this cycle with a struggle for a party of the working class!

B. Montoya,
Retiree SEIU Local 99