Tensions rise as unions and district attempt to head off strike by Las Vegas teachers
On Thursday, thousands of teachers flooded a meeting of the Clark County School District (CCSD) demanding the district honor contractual provisions mandating raises after the successful completion of professional development activities.
Around 2,600 of the district’s 18,000 teachers expected raises after completing enough professional development activities to move across a column on the district’s base salary table. In comments made to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, many teachers noted that the raises were necessary, as current salaries were insufficient to provide for themselves and their families.
The CCSD covers the city of Las Vegas, Nevada and surrounding communities and, with 350,000 students, is the fifth largest school district in the US.
Despite the fact that school board president Lola Brooks condescendingly admonished teachers at the beginning of the meeting, telling them “your anger is displaced, but it is our job to absorb it,” the school board in fact showed no intention of “absorbing” the teachers’ criticism. After 30 minutes of comments by teachers and concerned parents decrying the district for not paying the promised increases, the meeting was abruptly shut down, with police escorting board members outside of the building.
The board later cited “safety concerns,” despite the fact that none of the teachers or parent supporters had made any threats during the course of the meeting. Superintendent Jesus Jara nonetheless claimed that the meeting recess was necessary “for the safety of our trustees and everyone else in attendance.”
After the meeting was shut down, teachers repeatedly chanted “strike” and vowed that they “would be back.”
Nearly 70 percent of the district’s more than 18,000 teachers belong to the Clark County Education Association (CCEA) teacher union. The CCEA is currently in negotiations with the district but has promised a strike on September 10 if an agreement isn’t reached by that time. Last May, 5,000 of the union’s 11,000 members voted 78 percent in favor a strike.
Teachers are determined to make a stand against public education austerity. This is particularly the case in the Clark County district, which has among the lowest levels of per pupil funding in the country, amidst the obscene levels of wealth generated by the casino and entertainment industries. Strikes of public sector workers, including teachers, are illegal in the state of Nevada, carrying fines of $50,000 per day for the striking union and threatening loss of employment for any workers involved.
The district, for its part, has promised to keep schools open in the event of a strike, and is waiving fingerprinting fees for any prospective strikebreaking substitute teachers. Superintendent Jara said, “No child will be turned away from our district. All doors will remain open, regardless of any decision by the union.”
Aside from the question of professional development raises, the union is also currently negotiating with the district over the latter’s use of a “step freeze,” which prevented teachers from moving up the salary table during the last school year. Also under discussion are increases in employee contributions to the Public Employee Retirement System, which had reduced teacher paychecks by 0.625 percent last year.
As far as wages and salary increases are concerned, the two sides appear to be in agreement on a 3 percent salary increase, only slightly more than the 2.7 percent rise in the consumer price index as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Western US. Step increases would also be increased by a modest 2 percent. A roughly 4 percent increase in the district’s contribution to health care has also been agreed to by the parties.
In a likely signal that the union is preparing to abandon the teachers’ demands for the professional development raises that triggered Thursday’s protest, CCEA Executive Director John Vellardita said that the agreements reached thus far represented “significant progress” in avoiding a strike. Vellardita was echoing the sentiments of Jara, who noted that the proposals were put forward precisely to allow the union the chance to claim victory and thus call off the work stoppage. “We agree that teachers deserve more pay,” Jara said, “which is why we are offering a 3 percent raise, a step increase and contributing 4 percent toward medical for all their tremendous work.”
After a Friday meeting with the district, union officials announced that a “pause” had been reached in preparations for the September 10 strike, with no indication as to when, and under what conditions, a resumption of strike preparations could take place. This is in spite of the fact that Friday, Vellardita also called the district’s offer of a small, one-time payment for qualifying teachers in the salary advancement program insulting, disrespectful and “dead on arrival.”
While the CCEA continues its bargaining with the district, the Education Support Employees Association (ESEA), covering thousands of school support employees, is similarly negotiating with the CCSD over the terms of a new contract. There are three upcoming bargaining dates between the ESEA and the district, on August 27, September 3 and September 10. ESEA President Virginia Mills explicitly ruled out the possibility of a strike either alone or in conjunction with Clark County teachers, however. In an August 20 statement released on the ESEA’s website, Mills said “We expect to settle a contract with the District via the bargaining table, and not in the streets.”
The statement continued, “ESEA does not support or encourage any of its members to engage in an illegal strike. We would remind our members that striking in Nevada may result in immediate termination from the District.” Fully endorsing the right-wing nostrum that teacher strikes primarily harm students, Mills stated, “We will not put our kids in harm’s way and walk away from our classrooms, our lunchrooms, and our buses.”
The other school unions, the Clark County Association of School Administrators and the Professional-Technical Employees Association, told the Nevada Independent earlier this month that they too did not condone a strike “in any way shape or form.”
The ESEA is the largest local affiliate of the Nevada State Education Association, part of the National Education Association (NEA). The NEA, like its counterpart the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), is actively working to prevent the spread of new teachers’ strikes, a situation which the organization and its well-heeled executives believe has gotten too out of hand.
The CCEA, which recently broke from the Nevada State Education Association, has not indicated whether or not teachers will be paid in the event of a strike. Teachers interviewed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, however, are fearful they will receive no strike benefits. The World Socialist Web Siterequested clarification on this point from the CCEA last weekend and has yet to receive a response.
In spite of the fact that the district is not paying contractually mandated teacher raises, it nonetheless announced that it faces a $17 million deficit this academic year, followed by a $17 million deficit again next year. To close the deficit this year, the district middle and high schools have already cut $98 per student from their budgets. This was after the May authorization vote in which the CCEA vowed to call a strike if any cuts were made.
Executive Director Vellardita promised that, “Educators are not going to start next school year with one single cut in these classrooms.” The 2019-2020 school year began in August, however, with the union not doing anything to make good on its threat even with a strike authorization vote. Vellardita said there was no longer a need to strike over that issue, as the district “indicated it had enough money to get by” after the cuts.
This overall budget deficit, in fact, was not an accident, but is part of a planned underfunding of public education, in which the district, the state government and the unions have all played their part.
Plans have been underway in the state capital of Carson City for some time to replace the 52-year-old Nevada Plan for Education, which bases education funding on prior year spending regardless of actual student population growth. While the state of Nevada has a very low population density, in recent decades it has experienced explosive growth in the cities of Reno and Las Vegas, leading to vast underfunding of the overall student population. This has also resulted in poor salaries and benefits for teachers and support staff within the Clark County School District, which in turn has left many teachers leaving or refusing the enter the profession. The Clark County School District reported 750 vacancies at the start of the 2019-2020 academic year, a higher number than in any of the four preceding years.
Last May, state Democrats introduced the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan, which would establish a base funding amount per pupil, replacing the year-over-year funding model.
Not surprisingly, this measure was designed to function as a Trojan Horse. In exchange for a modest increase in per-pupil funding that will do nothing to meet students’ basic needs, the bill will have the effect of drastically reducing funding for teacher compensation and benefits. Under the provisions of the bill, even if the state’s education funding runs a surplus in a particular year, none of the surplus can be used to cover collective bargaining agreements with labor unions. In so doing, the state government has made clear that teachers’ contractually guaranteed benefits are no better than the paper they’re written on.
And a retired worker noted that the Democrats attacked the workers just as much as the Republicans. “Let’s not forget that we lost the most under Obama,” she wrote. “Family insurance paid by employer 100%, orthodontist, short term disability, and so much more. We lost thousands of dollars a year under Obama. The wages moved up by pennies.”
THE RISE TO POWER OF BANKSTER-OWNED BARACK OBAMA
'Incompetent' and 'liar' among most frequently used words to describe the president: Pew Research Center
The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.
OBAMA'S ASSAULT ON AMERICA -WHY WALL STREET, ILLEGALS, CRIMINAL BANKSTERS and the 1% LOVE HIM, AND THE MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE SHAFT TO PAY FOR HIS CRONY CAPITALISM
CEO pay is higher than ever, as is the chasm separating the rich and super-rich from everyone else. The incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than 11 percent between 2009 and 2011—the first two years of the Obama “recovery”—while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent actually shrank.
Meanwhile, Obama is pressing forward with his proposal, outlined in his budget for the next fiscal year, to slash $400 billion from Medicare and $130 billion from Social Security… AS WELL AS WIDER OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO LEGAL NEED APPLY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND HIS WALL STREET CRONIES
WELFARE CHEAT BARACK OBAMA FUNDS HIS EGO TOWER off tax payers backs!
I am sure that Obama and his friend and former chief of staff Rahm would not like to see pols running for mayor on a platform of halting the giveaway."
But that halt to lawlessness hasn't stopped the Windy City's politicians rushing to hand over almost 20 acres of precious lakefront park land to the private foundation controlled by Barack and Michelle Obama. The Obama Foundation (Obama.org) promises to build a monument to his presidency, called the Obama Presidential Center (OPC). It has to be called the OPC because it will not be an actual presidential library, under the control of the National Archives, but rather a privately controlled entity, free to focus on whatever pleases the 44th president.”
NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY SUCKED IN MORE BRIBES FROM CRIMINAL BANKSTERS THAN BARACK OBAMA!
This was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
AT&T strikers show their power, but face union-company gang-up
Years of pent up anger at AT&T exploded this weekend as 22,000 workers in nine southern states went on strike against the telecommunications giant. But officials of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) are preparing to call off the powerful strike as soon as the company agrees to new negotiations, without a new contract or even an offer to meet the demands by the workers on jobs, living standards and working conditions.
AT&T workers in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee walked off the job Friday night at midnight joining AT&T workers from South Florida who went on strike on Thursday morning. On Monday, workers set up picket lines at AT&T locations throughout the region and expressed their anger at the company and their determination to defend their jobs and living standards.
Workers at what is currently called AT&T Southeast, once Bell South, have been working without a contract since August 3, when their previous agreement expired. The rank-and-file voted by over 95 percent to strike, but the CWA ordered their members to continue working until Thursday’s action apparently forced their hand.
Pickets at Miami headquarters
The strike has been provoked by a savage and continuous assault by AT&T against workers’ jobs and living standards. The company has cut the work force nearly in half, while demanding that the remaining workers do twice the work, in the process creating unsafe conditions on the job.
At the same time, AT&T has effectively been cutting wages as inflation eats up the small pay increases granted, and workers are forced to pay larger and larger contributions to cover health care costs.
In the current set of negotiations, AT&T is demanding greater ability to fire workers for attendance and for not meeting production quotas. The company is also seeking a system where workers can be called out at almost any time and with little notice; eliminating many work rules and job classifications for technicians; increased monitoring of call center workers to boost production and increase disciplinary actions. In the current negotiations, the company is offering no pay raise while demanding that workers pay more for health care.
In the leadup to the contract deadline, the CWA leadership sought to ensure that the AT&T Southeast workers would be as isolated as possible. Over the past few months, the CWA leadership has signed concession contracts covering 14,000 workers at AT&T Midwest and AT&T Legacy bargaining units. Those workers had been working without a contract for more than a year.
It’s not clear if the CWA national leadership had approved the Thursday action by workers in South Florida or not. But once it happened, they clearly sought to call the regional strike to try and get out in front of the workers if only better to bring it to an end.
In a bid to contain the strike, CWA officials are claiming that it is over “unfair labor practices,” that is, a refusal by AT&T to bargain, rather than to oppose AT&T’s draconian demands and press those raised by the workers. This serves two purposes.
First, the CWA can call off the strike at any time, simply by claiming that the company is now bargaining in good faith. There may be no new offer, let alone a contract for workers to vote on, but the union would instruct the workers to abandon their main weapon, a work stoppage that is having a serious impact on the company.
Secondly, by calling the strike over “unfair labor practices,” the CWA doesn’t have to make public any of its demands. The union doesn’t want to set any expectations for its members and seeks to make it easier to describe concessions given to the company as a “victory.”
The workers have loudly expressed their demands for higher pay, secure health care and pension benefits, and an end to the crushing pressure of arbitrary discipline and dangerous productivity demands.
David, a wire technician in Miami who has worked at AT&T for five and a half years, explained, “I use this job to support my family. Pay is always everyone’s number one thing, but for me the insurance is more important. They can give you pay raises left and right, a dollar here and there, but on the flip side, when they raise the price of insurance then that doesn’t help us. Last contract, we got a couple dollars, but our insurance went up $60, so what does that really do for us?”
Many workers complained about the long hours they have been forced to work since the company cut almost 1,000 technician jobs in the past year, claiming it did not have the need for these employees. As John explained, “They went ahead and fired 165 technicians in the state of Florida who were tenured employees with 24+ years of service. Then they’re telling us we have to come in on weekends and work overtime. They’re trying to appease Wall Street at the expense of the men and women who have generated the income for this company.”
David further expressed, “The hours are crazy. I have a six-year-old and a seven-month-old. There are times when I go to a customer’s house, and I’m there past midnight. And there’s no paternity leave here. My wife spent a month and a half in the hospital because my daughter was born early. Everything I had to take off during that time I had to cover myself with a sick day or vacation day. I didn’t get paid for it.”
Technicians Mike and Tom outside of AT&T Headquarters in Miami
Mike, a service technician in Miami, told our reporter, “There are days when I don’t see my kids because I leave so early to get home so late.”
Alex, another AT&T technician in Miami, said, “AT&T management is only thinking about themselves. They just gave a $4 million bonus to the man who negotiated the Time Warner deal. And to do that, they’re laying us off, and the ones who are left get stuck doing all of the extra work.”
Tom, an outside plant technician in Miami, said, “We are hard-working people. Some of us risk our lives every day for this company and now they’re trying to cut down on our benefits and they’re also firing a whole lot of people. They’re trying to contract out the work some of the technicians do. Instead of having in-house employees they’re trying to contract the work out to not pay benefits.”
On the picket line in Nashville, Tennessee, workers said they had been told by union officials they could not discuss other issues because the strike was over unfair labor practices. But several spoke to the World Socialist Web Site about the deep class division between the rank-and-file workers, struggling to survive from day to day, and the corporate elite.
Jessica has worked for AT&T for 15 years and said, “We can’t get them to the bargaining table to even work with us.” She added that the reason the company won’t bargain is “because all the money is going to the top.” The last raise was last year about this time and amounted to only a two percent “cost-of-living” raise, she said.
Jennifer marked 27 years working for AT&T on Monday, and her mother worked at AT&T before her. Asked why she thought AT&T won’t bargain, Jennifer said, “Just as my co-worker said, they want to keep everything in-house at the top instead of for the frontline employees.”
Jennifer, Jessica and Renee in Nashville
Renee is another second-generation AT&T employee, with 20 years at the company, following her mother, who was on strike in 1983. “My mother participated in the strike of ’83 and I remember how bad those three weeks were, having to get boxes of food and having to live off of little or nothing, and that was back in the ’80s,” Renee recalled.
In 2011, the CWA applied the same “unfair labor practices” game at Verizon. After two weeks on strike, the CWA ordered their members to return to work without a contract. Workers had to work nearly a year without a contract and were forced to accept a deal with concessions and job cuts. During that time Verizon terrorized the workforce, including firing dozens of workers for so-called picket-line violations. Many never got their jobs back.
Eight years on, however, there is great nervousness in the US ruling elite and among their servants in the union hierarchy over whether the unions can continue to keep the lid on the sleeping giant that is the American working class. They are all well aware of the impending September 14 deadline for the national autoworkers contracts with GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler, massive strike votes by more than 150,000 grocery and Kaiser Permanente health care workers on the West Coast, as well as simmering tensions in dozens of school districts as the new school year approaches.
For that reason, the national media has downplayed the AT&T strike, with the television networks and the leading dailies, like the New York Times and Washington Post, largely ignoring it. This is not an oversight. Both the Timesand the Post seek to portray the working class in general and the workers in the South in particular as backward, racist, and chauvinist. The AT&T picket lines, with workers of all colors, genders and national origins waging a united fight, make a mockery of such lies.
The CWA brought Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to visit pickets in Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday to help provide political cover for the union leaders’ preparations to call off the strike. Sanders declared his solidarity with the workers, attacked AT&T executives for their greed and echoed the CWA’s nationalist denunciations of AT&T for transferring call centers to other countries. Then he went on to say, “I call on the management of AT&T to go back to the negotiating table and bargain in good faith with your employees.”
Sanders played a similar role during the 2016 Verizon strike. During the primaries, the CWA endorsed Sanders and he in turn appeared at a few of their rallies to provide union officials with a left cover while they worked to isolate and betray the strike.
Earlier this year, Sanders publicly backed the Wabtec strikers in Erie, Pennsylvania, giving the United Electrical workers union political cover while they were selling out the struggle. The UE paid Sanders back on Monday, as the national union, meeting in convention in Pittsburgh, endorsed his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Meanwhile the CWA is vigorously policing social media pages linked to the union, leading to widespread complaints by workers about the removal of critical comments and other forms of censorship. Among the complaints that came through despite this “curating” were reports that 900 workers were laid off in Greensboro, North Carolina, but not a single union representative among them (“Imagine that,” the poster remarked sarcastically).
There are also messages of solidarity from AT&T workers and CWA members in other parts of the United States outside the nine states affected by the strike. “Techs in SoCal 9400 stand with you, we should be next due to all the layoffs and broken promises,” one worker wrote.
One worker warned that the unfair labor practices strike was unlikely to last a week. “The union has no power,” he said. “AT&T owns the CWA.”
And a retired worker noted that the Democrats attacked the workers just as much as the Republicans. “Let’s not forget that we lost the most under Obama,” she wrote. “Family insurance paid by employer 100%, orthodontist, short term disability, and so much more. We lost thousands of dollars a year under Obama. The wages moved up by pennies.”
Another worker wrote of Sanders’ visit to the picket line in Louisville: “It will be the last time you see him. He did the same thing 2016 for the Verizon Strike. We walked the day before the NY Primary & after the primary Bernie was never seen again.”
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