Oakland teachers end strike, ratify TA
On May 15, after a seven-day strike for fair pay, sufficient services in their schools, and common goods for their students, the bargaining team of the Oakland Education Association reached a tentative agreement (TA) with the OUSD administration. A week later, on May 22, with 72% of the 3,000-member unit voting, the members approved the TA by a 90% margin.
East Bay DSA members walked with striking OUSD employees at every step, marching on the picket lines and supporting students out of school. Dozens of chapter members inside the union and in common struggle have shown the many shapes that solidarity can take. Twenty six-year Oakland teacher and EBDSA member Tim Marshall told California Red, “The OEA victory in our recent seven-day strike showed that Oakland teachers are fiercely determined to fight for our students and our communities as well as ourselves.”
The settlement beat back a divide-and-conquer two-tier salary schedule, won at least 10% raises for everyone in the unit (an average of 15%, according to Marshall), and produced common good gains that the administration had refused to consider prior to the strike, including shared governance and Black Thriving Community Schools (augmented funding and wraparound services for schools with over 40% African American students). The agreement also provided for hiring additional art teachers, librarians, nurses and counselors.
As teachers, families and supporters walked the picket lines, school board members had blocked efforts to include any “common good” proposals in the contract. These included demands to subsidize student transportation to school and to allow district-owned property to be developed for affordable housing in an area with a significant unhoused population. Even though districts like LA met common good demands from teachers, and even as East Bay DSA’s endorsed school board members called on their colleagues to negotiate, the administration refused to hear these proposals. EBDSA turned up the pressure by flyering the school board region of one board member who obstructed progress on common good demands.
Those demands could only be won by the educators on strike, and East Bay DSA members pulled together to help them continue for as long as it took. Chapter members coordinated picket support at critical schools and construction sites and turned out members from their own unions. EBDSA also relaunched its Bread for Ed campaign (originally created during the 2019 strike) to supply lunches for students who stayed out of school. EDBDSA members raised funds, prepared meals, and dropped off orders early in the morning to sites across the city. The chapter raised over $49,000 and delivered roughly 4500 meals to 35 different sites.
One retired Oakland teacher told an EBDSA member on the picket line that the meals from the chapter made all the difference to help teachers stay on strike into the second week, saying, “An army marches on its stomach.”
Not all dual OEA/EBDSA members were pleased with the trajectory of events. Einam Livnat, a high school math teacher, told California Red, “It’s not so much that the contract is disappointing, because everyone, including leadership, would agree that it wasn’t as good as it should be. And the problem wasn’t how the strike was carried out; especially considering the short time frame, it was very impressive. But why did it take months of footdragging on our side, which allowed the district to footdrag as well? We had to accept the TA because of how late in the year it was; we were cornered. My disagreement is whether we could have struck earlier and been more effective.”
A sandwich assembly line for the Bread for Ed campaign at the East Bay DSA office in Oakland.
For Tim Marshall, however, the bottom line was clear: “We showed our resolve by organizing, educating and winning important gains that will help keep good teachers in our district and improve outcomes for our students.”
