Oakland Teachers Vote to Authorize a Strike

OAKLAND
Teachers union votes to authorize a strike
- Simone Sebastian, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, March 23, 2006

Oakland teachers overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike during a union meeting Wednesday night, significantly raising the stakes in their contentious two-year contract dispute with the district.

Oakland's 3,100 teachers, nurses and librarians will not walk out of schools immediately, but the vote allows union leaders to call a strike at any time, with 48 hours' notice.

"We're not going to go out on some long, unlimited strike," said David de Leeuw, a teacher at Oakland Technical High School and the union's lead negotiator. "We would be foolish to do that while we're still having productive negotiations."

About 44 percent of Oakland Education Association members participated in the vote at Oakland Tech, and 76 percent approved the strike authorization.

Union leaders said they will call a strike if progress toward an agreement slows or breaks down.

Teachers have been without a contract since 2004. The chasm between the union's and district's contract proposals has narrowed since negotiators ended a six-week stalemate and returned to bargaining last week. But the sides remain at odds on several issues, including a pay raise for teachers and their contribution to health care premiums, which the district currently pays in full.

The average Oakland teacher earns $53,000, among the lowest averages for teachers in the Bay Area.

Teachers voluntarily took a 4 percent pay cut and fewer work days in 2003 after the district went bankrupt. In its latest proposal, the district has offered to restore that pay cut and give an additional 1.5 percent raise, but the union wants a 3 percent increase.

The district has also asked teachers to pay half of future increases in health care premiums. Union leaders want teachers to contribute a half-percent of their salaries to premium costs.

State Administrator Randy Ward, who was appointed by the state in 2003 to lead the district out of its financial crisis, has said that meeting the union's requests would hinder the district's progress toward fiscal health.

"We're receiving a mandate from the entire community to reach a settlement, and this vote does not change that,'' Ward said. "It does not change the fiscal reality of the district.''

Ward has criticized a fact-finding report conducted by a state-appointed mediator released in January that said the district could afford to raise teacher salaries as much as 2.5 percent a year. Union officials have praised the report.

School psychologist Mike Roche, who voted against the strike authorization, said the report gives the union enough of an edge in bargaining.

"The facts are on our side, so there's no need to do something rash like a strike," he said.

But most teachers who voted disagreed.

"If we're paying more on health care, the raises don't count," said Jill Warner, a Merritt Middle College High School teacher. "Frankly, working in Oakland is like doing charity work."

As OEA members were voting, members of the Oakland School Employees Association, which represents 1,100 secretaries, security officers and other classified employees, rallied at the district office.

Leadership of that union, which has been without a contract since June 2004, rejected a tentative agreement with the district last month, largely because it required employees to contribute to health care premiums.

No date has been set for the district and OSEA to return to negotiations.