In October, the United Educators of San Francisco  ratified (86%) a new contract that includes a $9,000 across-the-board increase (plus other increases) for credentialed educators and a $30/hr. minimum for classifieds, shrinking wage disparities while winning increases for everyone.

Alex Schmaus is an instructional aide (IA) in San Francisco, a member of the UESF executive board who also served as a member of the bargaining team. Alex is also a member of the Tempest Collective. I asked Alex about the UESF contract campaign, which like many ended in a TA said to be “historic”; at the very least, there were significant wins, and lessons to be learned by locals across California.

Q: What do you think of the recent contract campaign and the TA — positives and negatives?

A: The recent contract campaign led to some significant organizational improvements for UESF. A layer of one hundred or more site-based leaders now have experience as a member of a big bargaining team or a contract action team. Furthermore, we now have an elected Union Building Representative and site-based organization at all 130 SFUSD school sites and work areas. Hundreds of members gained experience participating in informational pickets at dozens of school sites this Spring. A couple thousand members participated in a mass rally outside of district offices this September. About 3300 members participated in a strike vote authorization last month. About 3800 members participated in the tentative agreement ratification vote last week. I do not think that UESF has ever recorded participation rates or vote counts that are this high.

Unfortunately, even though the contract campaign began last Fall, in 2022, UESF only set “collective action”, a euphemism for strike readiness, as a goal for this campaign in May 2023. Because of the late turn toward preparing a strike, it is possible that the union may have missed a pathway to a strike that would have been open had we been looking for it earlier in the calendar year. There is definitely a minority layer of activist-members who are disappointed that the union did not carry out a strike after record turnout for a strike vote authorization in mid-October. I am among those disappointed members. Strikes are good! They are an inspiring moment of collective refusal that can build strong unions.

The big story about what is in this TA is the raises. The UESF big bargaining team fought for “equitable and meaningful” raises and I think that we accomplished that. The classified members of UESF, instructional aides, especially early education instructional aides, and other non-credentialed educators, won huge raises. Instructional aides, for example, won raises of between 30 and 80 percent of their hourly wage. Newer credentialed educators, lower down on the salary schedules, also have an important win because of the flat, across-the-board raise of $9000 in year one of the contract. The big shortcoming of this TA is the lack of movement on special education service provider caseloads, which was another big priority for UESF.

Q: How did it come about that a significant portion of the salary increase is “flat” – the across-the-board $9000? In Berkeley, our union president would not consider asking for a flat raise.

A: The flat $9000, across-the-board raise for credentialed educators in year one of this contract, and the emphasis placed on big raises for classified UESF members, are both the product of the agreements, structure, and decision-making process of the big bargaining team. The bargaining team agreed to emphasize “meaningful and equitable” raises for all members. The team also agreed to try to represent each and every member of UESF, not just this or that section of members. The big bargaining team, with members selected from dozens of well-organized school sites, also meant that we had more representation from classified educators and newer credentialed educators on the bargaining team than ever before. The decision-making process of the bargaining team, which tried to rely on consensus and simple-majority voting, rather than centralizing all decisions in the person of the lead negotiator, was important as well.

Q: Even the new $30/hour for IAPPs is hard to live on in SF! How do you and other IAPP’s manage?

A: The new $30 per hour minimum wage for classified educators represents a huge raise for the lowest-paid members of UESF, but it is still a poverty wage in San Francisco. However, most instructional aides in San Francisco are veteran educators who have been working in the district for five or ten years or more. These veteran educators are going to be making significantly more than $30 per hour. For example, I currently earn a base wage of $28.34 per hour and I am expecting to make $37.98 by January 2025, that is a raise of nearly $10 per hour over two years. This is a meaningful raise well above $30 per hour, but even this is still a poverty wage in San Francisco. It will take further massive wins like this in the next contract cycle and maybe the one after that before we can begin to pull non-credentialed educators out of poverty, but that target is now in sight! As it is, most classified educators are compelled to work two, three, or more jobs to make ends meet in this very expensive area. Personally, I spend more than half of my income on rent every month. I have not bought myself new shoes or a new jacket in over a year. All of my socks have holes in them. I cannot afford to visit my godchildren in San Diego nearly as often as I would like.