We have to start somewhere
, a member of United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) and the Educators for a Democratic Union caucus in her union, sas it's time to draw a line.
May 25, 2010
I AM a member of United Educators San Francisco, AFT Local 61. I teach 9- to 11-year-olds. I am a union activist and a socialist. And I am urging every single one of my coworkers to vote "NO" on our contract.
The biggest mistake our union made this spring was to cancel the general membership meeting to authorize a strike vote. At the mere threat of a membership meeting, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), which had not budged in bargaining, finally agreed to reduce the number of teacher and paraprofessional layoffs.
After initially threatening to pink-slip over 900 educators in our 6,000-member union, SFUSD was ready to settle for an agreement to layoff 200 teachers and an unspecified number of paraprofessionals in exchange for $39 million in concessions.
Our union could have pressed forward and insisted that the membership vote could not be cancelled without rescinding all layoffs. But sadly, our union leadership is ready to settle, too, and has urged our members to vote for this agreement.
SFUSD piled on the pressure this past week, sending out coercive letters to some teachers on the layoff list this week, promising approximately 157 of those teachers that they would get their jobs back if the concessionary contract was agreed to.
I have been accused of utopian idealism and unrealistic militancy for taking this position--for insisting that what my union claimed was true. When they told us that the district had enough money in its over $43 million in reserves to save these jobs, I believed them. When they told me the district spent $52 million a year on consultants, and that some of