California: More teacher layoffs, more cuts in education, no serious response from heads of organized Labor

Sorry, but the pink thing didn't stop 'em

I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday about the war being waged by the Democrats and Republicans on California’s public education system. “Teachers Gloomy Outlook Darkens” the headline reads. I knew I shouldn’t have read it because it just made me angry. According to a report released Monday by the Center For The Future of Teaching and Learning, things are really bad for teachers and public education. Er, I think we know this.

The report points out how the budget cuts have increased class sizes by as many as 10 children. Some classes have over 45 children in them I have heard. And then you have to add all the different languages spoken in our schools; how can one person teach or our children learn with so few resources under these conditions?

Some 14,000 teachers were laid off last year and other support staff positions, teacher’s aides, counselors and nurses have been eliminated as well. California is facing a $28 billion state budget deficit for the coming fiscal year and more cuts are on the way. “School officials expect to mail out more pink slips (layoff notices) in the spring.” The article informs me. At the center of the article is a math teacher, who describes how difficult his job is and how insecure teachers feel. “We’re constantly being told our school may be closed down, that we’re not good enough.” says the teacher who, like most teachers, finds his job and “being around the kids and seeing them learn…..very rewarding.”

The article is very demoralizing. There’s nothing redeeming about it. This will all happen no matter what and there’s nothing we can do about it. I am getting madder, they want us to feel helpless. I want to get my hands on the architects of the destruction of public education and these attacks on teachers. I can’t say what I want to do with them even though I’m only fantasizing about it because this is a public blog and I might end up in jail.

So I do the crossword to get my mind off it and then flip to the news channel to see what’s on there: the same old stuff about the cuts in education. This time it’s the Mount Diablo Unified School District about 15 miles east of here in Concord. The news item is about the closing of schools there and a rally of parents and Unions opposing it. The protests are called “Blue Protests” the reporter says because people are “blue” about the state of education. People are wearing blue to protest the lack of funding for education. Even a school administrator comes out and he’s got blue on in solidarity with the people whose education system he is savaging as an agent of the corporations. It’s not us, it’s the state that is depriving us of funds; Sacramento is the problem. He is just following orders is what he’s saying. How about being angry? No, mustn’t be angry, we might act on it.

This makes me even madder and I have to restrain myself from getting up off the couch and going down the pub for a pint. I was successful as is evidenced by the fact that you’re reading this. It makes me doubly mad because last year the tactic the Union leadership laid out to oppose the layoffs, (issuance of pink slips) forced furloughs (which amounted to a 20% pay cut) and other attacks on teachers and public education, was to organize rallies at intersections on a Friday wearing pink, and after work so they didn’t violate any laws or cause any disruptions. Quite naturally, the school board members, politicians in the state legislature and their colleagues in Congress as well as the billionaires whose interests they represent didn’t give a damn.

What is so frustrating for a retired Union activist like me is that this is the best the Union officials can do. Back home we used to have an expression for people that were worthless organizers as organized Labor’s hierarchal leaders are, “They couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery” a “piss up” being a drinking session. I am trying to add a little humor here to keep my sanity. I was angered enough to go read the latest Business Week which I haven’t yet glanced at. It has on the cover Larry Fink. Larry Fink is a 58 year-old billionaire, the CEO of Blackrock. Blackrock is a firm of wasters that manage money, our money, and get very hefty fees for doing so. Larry is upset because he doesn’t get the recognition he should on Wall Street. I mean, he earned $15.9 million last year which isn’t bad and he manages more money than the GDP of Germany, but it’s not like being told you’re doing a good job. He was happy at least that he bested his competitor Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs who earned a measly 862,657 last year, down from $40.95 million in 2008.

“Fink is a warmly received guest of politicians and policymakers in Washington.”, Business Week tells us. This is no secret.  The finance industry might have their beefs with manufacturing capitalists or the tech billionaires but they all feed at the public trough and squabble with each other on one point only; who will be able to steal what from workers and the middle class. Fink counts among his friends, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geitner (the guy who forgot to pay his taxes, remember?)

So Fink and company earn millions of dollars in fees as coupon clippers except much of that is in managing taxpayer money or investing pension funds. In fact, according to one critic, several of the deals Fink and Blackstone was involved with went bust. CalPers, the California state pension fund lost $500 million in one of his real estate deals. No worries, Fink apologized. “For the clients for whom we made mistakes, were guilty” he says.

The point is, as I’m sure you know by now, that there is an abundance of money in society as previous blogs have pointed out. Hell, Goldman Sachs never had a quarterly loss until the last three months of 2008 and still took a $10 billion handout from the taxpayer.  The capitalists are on strike, holding $2 trillion.  Obama is meeting with CEO's today to try to coax them to invest and assures them he will help them profit from it.  We have to go after this money; it’s stolen from us. When we withhold our Labor they'll shoot us if necessary, they have. So we shouldn't be shy about going after that cash they are holding on to, it's ours anyway.

UC Berkeley. Some people take this seriously

 As I was watching the “blue” protest in Concord, I couldn’t help thinking that here in a West Coast town named after an East Coast one with revolutionary history, Union leaders organized a rally during which the main tactic was wearing blue to protest violent and vicious attacks on teachers and our education system. This follows previous worthless rallies where wearing red was the plan. With 300,000 (it used to be closer to 40,000) unionized teachers and two million unionized workers affiliated to the state Labor Federation, this is the best the leaders of organized Labor in the state could come up with. King George would have loved 'em.

Their refusal to organize a movement in the workplaces and communities against these attacks on workers and youth is nothing less than criminal. And as I write, I see that a man entered the school board meeting in Panama City Fla, and threatened to shoot the school board before killing himself. Before this, a witness says according to the AP, "I overheard some discussion about his wife needing a job, or his wife had lost her job or wanting a job or something like that." This happens because there is nowhere to go, no movement to turn to. This too is due to the failure of the head of organized Labor to act rather than cooperate with the capitalist’s offensive. It is also a reflection of the insignificance of what we call the left in this country; their inability to connect with the general mood and their refusal to abandon their sectarian methods and build a genuine united movement against the offensive of capital.  We have to build that alternative and give this anger an organized expression.

UCB students have a better plan

This country is on the verge of an explosion and they are pushing harder, they feel very confident in the absence of a generalized movement of resistance. There are a lot of positive developments, however. The youth are leading the way in the struggle to defend education with somewhat different tactics than the colored clothing offense and while the Union leaders pay them lip service, they are for the most part left to battle cops and bosses alone to our shame. Youth are also in the forefront of the struggle against incarceration and police abuse that has put two million in prisons, almost 50% of them African Americans. And throughout the world, workers are fighting back. The savage response by global capitalism to the leaking of documents that we should all be aware of by Wikileaks has brought a coordinated attack by direct action cyber activists; the trade Union leaders again, are silent on this issue.  As a comment on the blog about the strikes in Bangladesh suggested a few days ago though, the headquarters of the International Trade Union Federation should be moved from Vienna to Dhaka Bangladesh; we would all be better off for it.