Oakland Teachers/Educators Rally On Third Day of Strike

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The Oakland Education Association, SEIU and supporters of the Teachers/Educators strike that began in Oakland last Thursday held a rally today at Oakland's Frank Ogawa (Oscar Grant) Plaza. I couldn't stay very long but wanted to capture a little of it.

Just a couple of short points. As someone that has been in contract negotiations three times I strongly believe activists should always call for open negotiations, not secret negotiations which is generally what occurs. During our strike in 1985 I was on the negotiating team and despite being told not to talk on the picket lines I ignored that and discussed as much as I was able to what was going on when I visited them. Soem folks I spoke to really didn't know what was going on at the table only that the union had voted for the issues they wanted discussed.

As I say I wasn't there long but I did hear two statements from the podium that I have heard ad nauseum for 40 years. One was the announcement that someone was present and I can only assume it was a person from the Alameda County Labor Council. The Labor council is the county arm of the AFL-CIO to which AFL-CIO unions affiliate. A union has to get strike sanction from this body if the strike is to receive any support and be accepted as legal by the AFL-CIO. The Oakland Education Association that represents teachers is not in the AFL-CIO but the California Teachers Association which is affiliated to the National Education Association (NEA) the largest union in the US. It has over three million members nationwide and about 300,000 in California.

I assume it was a person from the Labor Council as I heard that this person represents 125,000 workers or something to that affect. I think the Alameda Council has about 125,000 unionized workers affiliated to it.  This is also relevant as SEIU represents instructional aides and I think that my former union, Afscme represents other school employees like custodians and possibly kitchen staff. These are AFL-CIO affiliates.

The crowd was told that labor has their back. But this is a bit deceptive. Introducing an individual that represents 125,000 workers sounds good but pretty much all of those workers don't know who that person is and that body and the officials in it are certainly making no effort to bring those workers out to a really, a picket line or to use their power to back up the teachers. Putting it bluntly, it's a feel good slogan and the bosses know it. But for many workers who are not active in their unions or are on strike for the first time, it sounds very impressive but it is just bravado.

You can read a previous article about the strike on day one here. There was a "community picket" scheduled for today but has been rescheduled for Wednesday here is the information on that.