From the OEA Rank-and-File Caucus  5/18/23

Last month … we proposed some possible actions to maximize pressure on the District to win our contract demands, since Build Our Power (BOP) union leadership had waited too long to launch a powerful strike this school year and was not conducting a member-driven bargaining campaign. We suggested escalating actions in the spring to build towards striking in the fall. This way, OEA members could reject a bad Tentative Agreement (TA) and prepare for a more powerful strike in the fall. Rank and file OEA members gathered hundreds of signatures on petitions to host a general membership meeting both before and during the strike. OEA leadership ignored these efforts completely, and went into a 7-day strike without direct input from the wider membership.

In response to the strike authorization vote, OUSD finally moved a little: they proposed a retroactive 10% salary increase, a collapsed salary-schedule, and a $5,000 bonus. OEA could have leveraged the strike threat to press OUSD to sign this compensation proposal for the 2022-23 year only, averting a premature strike and providing short-term financial relief. We could have then organized for a strike in the fall with greater community and membership support to win much more (such as common good demands, class size and caseload reduction, and better compensation in the next two years). Unfortunately, OEA officers drove towards an ill-prepared and ill-timed strike at the end of the year. They taxed OEA members’ finances, energy and community support with a seven-day strike that won very little that OUSD hadn’t already offered on May 1. Despite the circumstances, workers, families, and students held strong picket lines, rallies, and marches that galvanized our city and showed how well OEA members can mobilize in such a short period.

While some members will protest this weak TA with a No Vote, we understand that a rejection of the agreement is unlikely, considering the tough choice imposed on members. After giving up $2,000-$3,700 by being on strike, many of us cannot afford to turn down the immediate relief from the retroactive raise and one-time payment. Under these circumstances, the ratification of this TA will not represent an endorsement of its content, but a tactical retreat from the trap that OUSD set for us, which OEA leaders walked us into with their careless bargaining strategy. 

OEA’s Bargaining Team (BT) representatives, who put in an enormous amount of unpaid labor (and sleepless nights), did their best under the circumstances imposed on them.The BT members are not responsible for the union’s botched strategy: the late start of negotiations, the failure to declare impasse or to file a ULP months earlier, the refusal of OEA leadership to respect Rep Council’s role in bargaining (under OEA Bylaws), or the decision to strike just three weeks before the end of the school year. Lastly, as the OEA leadership (with CTA and NEA staff) closed the deal in the last days of the strike with limited BT influence,the bargaining team members cannot be held responsible for problems in the Tentative Agreement. Nobody should be guilt-tripped with the nonsense that “a No vote is a slap in the face of our Bargaining Team.” 

What will it take to wage a successful strike next time? We may confront this question as soon as 2024-25, because our new contract provides no raise in that year, only the opportunity to reopen negotiations on two items, including salary negotiations. To win next time, we will have to completely transform the organizing approach in OEA. Our next bargaining campaign must be far more transparent and democratic. It must engage many more members in developing creative strategy and actions, like disrupting economic pressure points in Oakland, along with shutting down all OUSD school sites. We will need to build lines of communication and mutual support with classified workers and educators in other Bay Area districts. (See what UTLA recently won after striking in solidarity with SEIU 99 workers.) If we strike, we’ll need escalating actions from Day 1 to pressure OUSD’s political and corporate backers, so that we win as quickly as possible, while being prepared to stay out for as long as it takes. We should not allow CTA or NEA to dictate our actions or rely on their connections with Democratic Party politicians who are on the same side as OUSD administration.

From the OEA Rank-and-File Caucus       rankandfilecaucus.wordpress.com