California teachers' Union president to the right of the bosses politicians

California Teachers protests cuts

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
5-14-2011

The US capitalist class is feeling very confident. Their propaganda against public sector workers is producing results as they flood the pages of their press and the airwaves with stories of lazy, overpaid public workers living high on the hog drawing exorbitant pensions. “The real problem” writes Allysia Finley in today's Wall Street Journal, “is that more and more tax dollars are being diverted for teacher benefits.”

The NEA is the largest Union in the US representing some 3 million teachers nationwide and over 300,000 here in California. They want to bust this Union fresh after bringing the UAW leadership fully on to their team savaging the auto workers in the process, cutting pay in half in some instances. Teachers are also dangerous in that they are very close and influential to working class youth including the youth in the inner cities, those with the most revolutionary potential. The  Union officials don’t even pretend any more. They support concessions fully; for them, the room to maneuver is shut down and they now openly cooperate in the interests of the economy. We never even hear the term .  “No Concessions” anymore. In Wisconsin, concessions weren’t an issue as the Union leadership are totally wedded to the market.

The rank and file workers of any Union are forced to fight wars on two fronts, against the boss and against the collaborative policies of their leadership. Here in California for example, the Democratic governor, Jerry Brown wants to extend taxes for another 5 years that are due to expire in June. He wants the legislature to vote on it although it would take a two-thirds majority to pass-----very democratic of him. This is the only choice on the table, cuts or tax increases. The Union officials that head the California Teachers' Association on the other hand are so desperate to tax their members and the rest of us that they are calling for Governor Brown to extend the taxes without a vote, by executive order; the Union officials are to the right of the capitalist politicians. It would be hard to come up with a more insane policy. Not only will it not save education, it is suicide for workers as it is divisive, an obstacle to building the solidarity and a united movement that could actually improve our conditions.

So the bosses have a massive ideological war going on to convince workers and the middle class that public sector workers, teachers at the front of the line at the moment, are the cause of all our ills. This ideological war is also on the front burner as in the aftermath of the crash the mood against Wall Street, the corporations and capitalism itself has not been favorable to them. But propaganda is a weapon, and like all weapons at times they hit home if you fire enough shots.

Rather than take advantage of a very favorable objective situation by launching an offensive of our own, waging as vicious a war against the bankers, the corporations and the rich as they are waging on workers and the middle class, the Union hierarchy that has considerable resources at its command, resources that could undoubtedly change public opinion and the balance of class forces, are to the right of the Democrats, a party of Wall Street.

David Sanchez, the president of the CTA admits that voters do not want to increase their taxes. “The people are pretty clear that they don’t want new taxes” he tells the WSJ.  That should tell you something, but his answer to this is to appeal to Jerry Brown, a political representative of Wall Street to deny the voters the right to vote and force taxes on them against their will. This is as destructive and anti-worker position as you could get. A top Union official wants to reduce our disposable income against our will and a politician of the bourgeois wants us to have a choice in the matter. The other capitalist party wants no tax increases but cuts to those selfish and high paid public sector workers.

Given the role that the Union hierarchy plays, I am convinced that what happened to the private sector and to the UAW over the last few years will happen to the public sector, although I would like to be wrong. It is going to take great shocks but at some point there will be an explosion here; it cannot go on indefinitely.

In the Unions, the tradition of struggle has been driven deep in to the recesses of our minds and decades of defeats primarily due to the role of the leadership at the highest levels, has made workers very wary of putting up a real fight. In many locals, leaders are burying their heads, offering concessions or rolling over contracts hoping for better times. But there will be no better times. We cannot avoid a fight as the US capitalist class is putting us on rations, plus, we can have victories, but not by telling the members that there’s nothing they can do, vote to accept what the boss offers and go home; this reinforces the false view that we can’t win and it is a view we have to overcome; it does a disservice to the members. We are in a struggle here for the consciousness of the working class.

In the Unions we have to build caucuses and opposition groupings not simply around the demand for “Union democracy”. Who opposes that? It's like standing for justice.   But workers will not be drawn in to activity around the demand for union democracy. While many activists use this phrase for genuine reasons, some do not and it is a substitute for raising a different strategy and concrete demands that confront capitalism and the bosses' offensive that also leads to conflict with the right wing bureaucracy that is at the helm of organized Labor.  Some don't really believe the rank and file workers will fight and orient to the left bureaucracy.  Some don't accept in their own minds that there is an alternative at all.  There are two forces that draw workers in to activity though, the bosses (capitalism itself) and the leadership of the working  class.  If you present yourself or group as an alternative to what already exists, what are you going to do differently?  What do you actually stand for and how can we win it?

In all aspects of our activity in society, inside Unions and out, we must fight for and build a movement around what we need, not what the politicians in the two capitalist parties or their co-thinkers at the head of organized Labor says is “realistic”. We reject that there is no money in society we reject that there has to be job losses, pay cuts, home evictions cuts in education and health care and care for the elderly and disabled. We are disgusted with and reject the fact that there are two million Americans in prison and that 400 Americans have as much wealth as 155 million of us.  We reject their predatory wars and murderous foreign policy that doesn’t reflect the interest or aspirations of the majority of the American people. We reject that they have the right to move factories destroy communities and poison the earth. We reject their right to rule society period.

Not a single cut in wages, benefits, spending or working conditions.

Every contract to be signed to contain increases for the workers covered and for spending in services.

For a $20 .00 an hour minimum wage or a $5.00 an hour increase whichever is the greater.

For a guaranteed job for all through a public works program and reducing the length of the working week with no loss in pay.

For free education and free health care for all at the point of use.

For an end to all wars, military occupations and a reduction in military spending.

For a campaign to explain how the employers and their class have used and still use racism and sexism to divide and rule the working class movement and to oppose this.

For the election of all union leaders subject to recall at any time, their wages to be the same as the average wage of their members and all their expenses to be made available to all their members.

For the building of a working peoples’ party as an alternative to the bosses parties the Republicans and Democrats.

For the movement to have at its center a discussion on the nature of the capitalist system and what the alternatives are. In the case of this blog we see the alternative as a Democratic Socialist Society in the US and on a world scale.  For working class unity and socialism