I thought I’d be writing a piece about the impending strike in Mt Diablo Unified, where I’ve taught middle school for 17 years. By early March, MDUSD and MDEA, the teachers union, were at impasse, with the District claiming it couldn’t meet the union’s “unreasonable” demands, and a strike seemed inevitable. Both sides were preparing for the fight. 

As of March of 2022, MDUSD teachers had gone without a pay raise for almost five years. A 5% salary schedule increase agreed to in late-2019 was rescinded when COVID struck. 

On Tuesday, March 15th, the MDUSD Board of Education held an emergency meeting at which it approved a resolution giving Superintendent Clark overarching power in the case of a strike, authorizing “premium pay” to administrators and payments of $500 per day for substitutes who scab.

Just a few days later however, sometime after midnight on Saturday, March 19th, MDUSD and MDEA negotiators reached a tentative agreement, since ratified by the membership, which included a 10.5% salary hike over a three year period, 4% of which is retroactive to July 2021. This was a significant improvement on offers District negotiators had made up to that point and much better than the three year-2% salary hike District had offered at the beginning. 

So what changed between the MDUSD Board of Education meeting on the evening of Tuesday March 15th and the announcement of a Tentative Agreement on Saturday morning, the 19th? A series of demonstrations of teacher willingness and capacity to collectively fight changed the district negotiators’ calculus:

• On Wednesday, MDEA announced that 92.3% of members, out of 90% of the membership who cast a ballot, voted yes to authorize a strike. 
• On Thursday, a six day teachers strike in Rohnert Park led to a tentative agreement including a three year 14.5% salary increase for teachers.
• On Friday morning well-attended and energetic pickets were conducted at almost all the schools. 
• On Friday afternoon 600-700 MDEA members and supporters picketed outside MDUSD District offices, where the fact-finding panel was meeting. 

Organizing matters. Numbers matter. Other locals winning matters.

It is important to take stock of the bright spots and wins. But we also need to look at the conclusion of this round of the fight with clear eyes. A 10.5% wage hike over three years after years with no wage increases does not keep up with the cost of living. Despite 90% of teachers ready to strike–in a District with very large class sizes, degraded and under-resourced facilities, and yawning unattended needs–we made virtually no gains aside from a modest salary increase after years with none.. While MDEA concluded almost all of its communications with “our students deserve the best,” there were virtually no gains that directly bolster public education or improve the educational experience for  the overwhelmingly working class student population MDUSD serves. 

In short, the conclusion of this round of negotiations between MDUSD and MDEA highlights the glaring inadequacy of a strategy centered exclusively around making demands on public school districts that are systematically underfunded. We need to pursue a strategy that enables our movement to make demands that truly inspire–that are commensurate with the needs of public schools and those who work in and attend them. 

    The narrow focus on extracting what underfunded public school districts can afford to concedeblinds us to the fact that enough wealth exists to afford high-quality and well-resourced public schools for all students. California is the richest state in the richest country in the world, the base or home to many of the richest and most highly-valued companies in the world–companies like Facebook, Google, Intel, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman, which wouldn’t exist were it not for hundreds of billions in research and development and other subsidies “invested” in them over decades by the federal government and tens of thousands of employees educated and trained by publicly-financed K-12, community college, and university institutions. Furthermore, in the past two years, as we find ourselves fretting over whether we’ll have properly ventilated rooms for our overcrowded classrooms during a pandemic, the billionaire class in the United States has seen its net wealth increase by $1,700,000,000,000 (Trillion!). Consider that the next time you’re told we don’t have enough money to afford maximum class sizes of 25. 

So the wealth exists. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Any accounting system that renders the conclusion that cutbacks to music and arts and libraries and extracurricular activities are “needed” while the multi-millionaires and billionaires pork out with abandon needs to be rejected. And those who invoke such accounting systems and make such arguments should be seen for who they are: stooges of the rich. Hello, MDUSD Board! 

We are never going to win well-funded public schools for all children without a fight that crosses districts and makes demands on the California state government from a position of strength. California has a nearly $40 billion budget surplus and a governor whom the unions shovel money to by the millions. If educators and allied working class forces in districts across the state were to strike, we could demand that money goes to programs and services that make working class lives better–and that would certainly include public schools. 

Organizing matters. Numbers matter. But to do more than stay in the same place, educators have to unite across districts–supporting each other in our respective fights and, most of all, in the fight for more money from the California state government. We can do it. 

Aaron Hackett,

 Oak Grove Middle School

             Mt. Diablo USD