President Obama gained a lot of support from teachers’ unions during his election campaign for his promises. But now, with the economic crisis deepening, all of these promises have suddenly disappeared. And what teachers and working-class students have been left with in Los Angeles and around the United States is the very real prospect of staggering budget cuts leading to classroom cuts, job loss and a worsening quality of education for everyone, but particularly working-class students.
Obama held a town hall meeting at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in Los Angeles this past March. When he was asked about the possibility of layoffs of thousand of teachers and the impact on education, Obama not only forgot his campaign promises but did not give a direct answer. Instead, he talked about merit pay and charter schools, going against everything unions have fought for: better working conditions for teachers and quality education for students.
How has this policy, pushed by a Democratic president, affected teachers and students here in L.A.?
On April 14, the L.A. Unified School District School Board approved two important measures: The first one rescinded the layoff notices of 1,996 elementary teachers. The second approved the possible layoff of 3,477 non-permanent elementary and secondary teachers and 498 non-permanent support services professionals, along with more than 3,000 other employees. It means that almost 9,000 persons might lose their jobs by the end of this school year. It also means that next year, teachers will have more students in each classroom, leading to more overcrowding. Overall, we can be sure that the quality of education will decrease, especially in working-class areas, where teaching and learning conditions are already difficult.
When you look at the numbers, you wonder how this could happen. LAUSD is receiving more than $850 million in federal stimulus money, according to the United Teachers Los Angeles union. This money, if used properly, could prevent all classroom layoffs for this year and possibly next.
Nevertheless, the district is mismanaging the money. Money mismanagement is not unique to LAUSD; actually it is intrinsic to capitalist society. From the federal to local government, from private and public institutions, as long as socially produced wealth is privately appropriated by a handful of capitalists, there will always be mismanagement and the squandering of resources. But we understand that these resources are actually ours. They come from our tax dollars and we should be able to control where they go.
UTLA has been militantly fighting the educational cuts through demonstrations. I am a member of UTLA, as are other PSL members. We are working within UTLA to push forward the struggle for education. As socialists, we seek to be part of unions and to help make them fight for working people’s rights and to raise class-consciousness among other union members. Fortunately, UTLA is waging a campaign of struggle that has included street demonstrations, civil disobedience and more. It has not relied only on funding politicians and asking politely for support.
In the coming days, UTLA members will vote on whether to hold a dramatic job action in May. The union is proposing that May 15 be a one-day work stoppage—basically a one-day strike. This decisive and dramatic action must be taken to protest layoffs and class-size increases. If it happens, it should be supported by students, families and other unions and workers. Our job here today is to take the union struggle and build support for it in every other sector we can. We should all strike on May 15 with UTLA. And we should all continue organizing, as socialists, in this important struggle.
