Oakland Schools to Continue Hiring Scabs

This is a report forwarded from 3 people who attended the Scab Job Fair on Friday, January 27 at the Oakland Airport Hilton:

"(1/28/06) We went to the hall on Friday, early in the afternoon. Only one person had his diploma and was able to continue through the application process. Neither of the other two of us brought ours, but we did find out the details of what we needed to bring next time. So we just mingled and ate and drank to our heart's content at the coffee/pastry buffet.

The comrade with his diploma sat at the dozen or so tables set up to fill out his application. The other comrade and I ate and talked like we were too stupid to know we were scabs. Others joined the conversation, some defending that it was "for the kids." Most still said they wished the best for the teachers. The diplomaed one further provoked the discussion with people around him, I joined in--and after some others joined, if even passively by listening, our third comrade joined too. Our friend with his diploma carried on in the conversion for quite awhile, progressively realizing that he was stabbing the regular teachers in the back, and then stated boldly "I JUST CAN'T DO THIS!" The other guy and I agreed and all of us casually walked out. Two women, who'd been istening attentively, followed us out without finishing filling out their applications in order to move on to the interview process.

A tiny victory, and on the way out we scrawled with a marker on the conference room poster, mounted on an easel, announcing the teacher hiring, "DON'T SCAB!" and left.

All-in-all, it was good to scope out the district's scabbing. The common refrain of the fools who were scabbing was 'We're on doing it [SCABBING] for the kids,' which after hearing it enough times was nauseating. If we do this again, we need to make clear that teachers and support staff took a 4% pay cut in 2004 and the contract the OUSD offered DOESN'T even bring them back up to parity with their wages before that. And the tight-fisted district doesn't even have enough books or supplies for each student and it's very common for teachers to pay over $1000 a year, out-of-pocket, to provide those things for the students. The Oakland Tribune had a story on January 16th about Castlemont High School closing its library. So, the district doesn't give a fuck about the kids. And paying sleazy scabs $300 a day isn't going to change that one bit. Randy Ward runs the district like an autocratic dictator, but the numbers compute as well as Arthur-Anderson managed for Enron. Any one who cares about the kids should support the teachers, at least the 70% who stick around each year and don't leave because of the shitty wages and conditions.

They're continuing the scab hiring on Monday [January 30] at the district's HQ downtown. We are planning to doing something there next week. With more advanced warning, we'll let you all know."

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Some reflections of the above:

Perhaps the students, parents and teachers in Oakland should take a cue from the John Swett Elementary School in San Francisco, where 90% of the kids were kept out today in protest about the school being closed and merged with 2 others into a new school a considerable distance away (http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2006/01/31/news/20060131_ne01_protest.txt).

In the 1996 Oakland teachers strike, schools maintained the same level of emptiness--80-90%, with only about 15% of teachers scabbing--because parents supported the teachers with groups like the "Parents for Classrooms First," mimicking the slogan of the teachers' struggle and strike. But earlier the students had risen up valiantly, creating the "Student Power Union" with the goal of pushing the teachers to be more militant and make the strike "stronger and more fierce." The organized students helped rebuild mass militance on the picket lines and were clearly more radical in tactics and demands than the teachers' union.

The strike was successful for the wages of the regular teachers, but its great flaw was a contract that allowed other support staff, like counselors whose already heavy workload with the ratio of one counselor to 300 students was raised to 500 students. Also betrayed were early childhood education workers and school psychologists, many of whom were laid off. And the district completely hedged on reducing classroom size, one of the main demands of students, teachers and parents.

Learning the lessons from the struggles of the past can help avoid their mistakes and emulate their strengths in the class war of the present.

VICTORY TO THE STRIKING TEACHERS!

Gifford