Some Afscme Local 444 Memories: The 1985 Strike

Below is an early memo from our bosses after we struck. When we walked off the job our strike was an illegal one. Just as it was illegal for the old timers to have walked off the job when the union was formed. I was on the negotiation team and recall us sneaking away every time we saw process servers approaching. I think the Ca Supreme Court legalised the strike during the period we were out. 

Barring the lab at SDI and perhaps other individuals, our sister union Afscme 2019 did not honor the picket lines. While as individuals we have responsibility to make decisions that are not easy, I blame the leadership of 2019 and in particular, the leadership and reps  from our District Council.  I remember asking a couple of the women from 2019 who we're still working and both of them told me that the advice from the DC 57 rep when they asked her what they should do, twas that they follow their conscience.

Now that's a slick one. If it were simply a matter of one's individual conscience, why would we need a union and make decisions collectively. And we certainly wouldn't need a full time rep from a higher body to which we paid a significant amount of money. to tell us that. It's an absence of leadership. I remember one of the first big fears for the membership was a letter from the employer telling us that medical benefits would end at the end of the month, certainly implying that. This is a serious issue here in the US where we have no national health care system to speak of and especially when you have children or babies. It's a form of economic terrorism and shows how important a state retirement system is and a national health care system with care at the point of demand.

So many US workers fall for this argument that smaller government is better, that comes out of the mouths of the enemies of the working class; the bosses' their political representatives, and right wing influencers and their individualism and "I made it on my own" garbage etc. When politicians are talking about smaller government, they are not referring to defence spending, defence contracts and other hand outs that people like Musk and the corporations get. They are talking about public health care, transportation, education and so on.

  Richard

PDF of this memo here

California: Massive homelessness in a state with 90 billionaires.

Down near my former workplace.

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

I worked in the streets of Oakland and surrounding towns for 30 years. I worked for the water utility that supplies some 3 million residents on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). I remember driving my backhoe (JCB to Brits) up Peralta Street heading toward Emeryville and North Oakland and I would see the homeless pushing their shopping carts liberated from some Safeway parking lot and laden with cans, metals and other recyclables to a scrap dealer there. 

I became familiar with some of them as I drove by, giving a nod here, a wave there. They were homeless but were dignified, they were working collecting recyclables that could keep them going another day. There were occasional complaints from the "official" refuse collection company that the homeless would do the rounds of the recycle bins parked at the sidewalks edge which is where residents left them for the company trucks that emptied them and took them to the dump. Back then, three workers, Teamster members used to accompany the trucks, one driving the other two grabbing the bins and emptying them. Where I live now, it's just one person as the garbage truck is automated, picks up the bins, empties them and each stop takes just a few minutes.  As with all technical advances that improve the productivity of labor, they are owned by the capitalist not the worker. The excess labor power now no longer needed is cast aside. Technology in the hands of the private sector increases the exploitation of the worker; I don't think the invention of the dishwasher or vacuum cleaner liberated the housewife.

Now when I drive through Oakland there are literally tent cities everywhere, and I mean real cities.   Many of the homeless have traditionally been the mentally ill that were thrown on to the streets when Reagan and co shut down the institutions that were supposed to serve them. For the longest time, one third of the homeless were Vietnam veterans. What a world, a worthless POS like Reagan treating people suffering from the trauma of conflict like that. Isn't the free market great!

The city clears these camps on occasion throwing away their tents and belongings but where can they go? What a barbaric practice. If one is not suffering from some sort of mental illness prior to being homeless and living on the streets, they certainly are likely to after it. Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle today, Otis R Taylor Jr points out:
"Homelessness in Oakland increased by 47% in the past two years, with a 68% increase in the number of unsheltered people — from 1,902 to 3,210 people. What’s more, 70% of homeless people are black when black people are less than a quarter of Oakland’s population."

There is talk in some communities of building "affordable" housing and "sheds" that homeless people can occupy. But this is no solution. The US ruling class will throw a few million at some social issues that are a by product of capitalism but the system is incapable of eliminating the savagery of the market, homelessness, like racism and constant war are all an integral part of capitalism and the fox will not protect the chickens in the hen house.  Crucial state institutions supposedly responsible for the health of millions of people are not designed to rectify society's problems; they are designed to give the impression they are.  I have been reading about the state of the Indian Health Services, an arm of the federal government that services over two million Native Americans, it is failing them and it is designed to. And anyway, without a job or skills and after years on the streets, these vicrims of the market need more than just a roof.

In the US, public transportation is so mediocre, particularly so here in California that during the Great Recession and on through these equally hard times, people walked away from their home and the blood sucker's mortgage but continued to pay off the car loan. This was a smart decision as they could sleep in the car and at least get to work.  There has been an increase in the number of vehicles, cars, trucks, and motor homes that park in certain areas, homeless with a roof at least. The "working poor" is a huge section of those in desperation and poverty in the US. To correct this situation will require a lot more than a few sheds and a million thrown out here and there. The trillions spent on the US military are off the table when it comes to finding funds. Same with the wealth of the small percentage of multi billionaires in the US who combined net worth could end world hunger.

It is the insecurity, fear, sense of powerlessness that drives the violent responses, drug and alcohol addiction and wiping out of one's entire family that are so prevalent here in the US; sensible gun control and background checks that any normal person would support will not solve the problem. There is a sort of collective madness. Almost every day there are mass killings of some sort. This is given fuel by the fact that in the media and society in general there is this constant propaganda that directs the blame at the victims. The "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps"  bull has not gone away although more and more people have no bootstraps to pull up. Even if they are working, they have two maybe three jobs with one of them having some sort of meager health insurance. The extreme wealth of a few at the top is ever present in the movies and television. I long for a show where one of the actors says to the roommate, "I'd better hurry I get in real trouble if I'm late for work." This is a bit exaggerated, but the reality is that on TV, work doesn't really exist, everyone just has fun, sex and cracks jokes to one another. There will be a black face, a gay person an immigrant, and so on just to show how wonderful life is here. Remember Breakfast Club, "isn't life swell".

There are increasing challenges to this madness and that includes homelessness but, as we have stated on this blog in the past, there will be some explosions ahead in the US. The movement against the savagery of the market will not be pretty, there will be confusion, steps back and steps forward and there will be violence as reaction rises in response to the class struggle becoming more acute. The US capitalist class has a long rich tradition of hiring gangsters and thugs to combat social movements and the organized working class. US labor history is full of such examples, like the Pinkertons and the Civil Rights had the citizens councils and the KKK. Here is the link to Otis Taylor Jr's article on the situation in Oakland in today's San Francisco Chronicle

Video: OEA Rep Council Vote On Tentative Agreement. Diverse Views

Friday March 1, a powerful strike by the Oakland Education Association (OEA) came to an abrupt halt when the union's bargaining team and officers agreed to a tentative contract settlement that fell far short of what Oakland teachers and their student and community supporters thought they'd been fighting for.

The next day, over 100 OEA site representatives met to discuss the settlement and then vote on whether to recommend ratification to the general OEA membership. Labor videographer Steve Zeltzer interviewed several people on their way into the meeting hall. The interviewees included some past and present OEA leaders, as well as several rank and file members, and presents a diversity of views, ranging from outraged opponents of the settlement to staunch defenders. The video is 25 minutes long, and we think that it's well worth watching in its entirety.

Jack Gerson, former Oakland Education Association Executive Board and former negotiating team member

Oakland Teachers/Educators Rally On Third Day of Strike

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The Oakland Education Association, SEIU and supporters of the Teachers/Educators strike that began in Oakland last Thursday held a rally today at Oakland's Frank Ogawa (Oscar Grant) Plaza. I couldn't stay very long but wanted to capture a little of it.

Just a couple of short points. As someone that has been in contract negotiations three times I strongly believe activists should always call for open negotiations, not secret negotiations which is generally what occurs. During our strike in 1985 I was on the negotiating team and despite being told not to talk on the picket lines I ignored that and discussed as much as I was able to what was going on when I visited them. Soem folks I spoke to really didn't know what was going on at the table only that the union had voted for the issues they wanted discussed.

As I say I wasn't there long but I did hear two statements from the podium that I have heard ad nauseum for 40 years. One was the announcement that someone was present and I can only assume it was a person from the Alameda County Labor Council. The Labor council is the county arm of the AFL-CIO to which AFL-CIO unions affiliate. A union has to get strike sanction from this body if the strike is to receive any support and be accepted as legal by the AFL-CIO. The Oakland Education Association that represents teachers is not in the AFL-CIO but the California Teachers Association which is affiliated to the National Education Association (NEA) the largest union in the US. It has over three million members nationwide and about 300,000 in California.

I assume it was a person from the Labor Council as I heard that this person represents 125,000 workers or something to that affect. I think the Alameda Council has about 125,000 unionized workers affiliated to it.  This is also relevant as SEIU represents instructional aides and I think that my former union, Afscme represents other school employees like custodians and possibly kitchen staff. These are AFL-CIO affiliates.

The crowd was told that labor has their back. But this is a bit deceptive. Introducing an individual that represents 125,000 workers sounds good but pretty much all of those workers don't know who that person is and that body and the officials in it are certainly making no effort to bring those workers out to a really, a picket line or to use their power to back up the teachers. Putting it bluntly, it's a feel good slogan and the bosses know it. But for many workers who are not active in their unions or are on strike for the first time, it sounds very impressive but it is just bravado.

You can read a previous article about the strike on day one here. There was a "community picket" scheduled for today but has been rescheduled for Wednesday here is the information on that. 

Oakland Teachers Strike Day 1

by Jack Gerson

Retired  Oakland Teacher

Former member OEA Executive Board and Bargaining Team

I just returned from the Oakland Education Association’s (OEA’s) rally in front of Oakland City Hall, on Day One of the Oakland teachers’ strike.  It’s hard to judge crowd size, but I’d say that it was about 5,000. OEA has fewer than 3,000 members, so that’s a good start. Certainly the biggest and most positive energy I’ve seen from this union since the 1996 strike. It’s clear that the red state teacher strikes touched off something. Teachers’ energy and their expectations have been raised. The Los Angeles teacher strike, while settling for pretty modest gains in salary and class size reduction, nevertheless beat back the worst of a vicious attack orchestrated by local billionaires (Broad; Bloomfield; etc.) who funded and controlled a majority of the school board. Teachers here in Oakland certainly see themselves as part of an incipient but growing movement against privatization and the overall corporate assault on public education.

The rally was upbeat and energetic, but not exuberant. When I drove to the picket line at my old school this morning — it’s located in a very high poverty area of “Deep East” Oakland known locally as “Murder Alley” — I passed a couple of elementary schools in the area where teachers were out picketing, but although I was in a line of about half a dozen cars, I was the only one who gave support horn honks. Another teacher who passed other area schools told me that he had observed the same thing. And when we were on the picket line this morning, there were some supportive honks from passing cars, but not many. On the other hand, back in a more affluent part of Oakland where I live, I’ve been told that close to half the passing cars honked in support. This may mean nothing, or it may mean that the support in high poverty areas is not as strong as in more affluent areas — and most Oakland students live and go to school in high poverty areas. So we’ll see whether this is meaningful.

Oakland teachers are the lowest paid in Alameda County, despite living in an area where housing costs, and apartment rents, are sky high and still soaring. Young teachers at the low end of the pay scale can’t afford to live in the area unless they share a rental with several roommates. Even veteran teachers at the high end of the pay range can only afford to live in the area if they locked in a low mortgage or a rent controlled apartment decades ago. This is one of the reasons why Oakland has one of the highest teacher turnover rates in the country — 70% of teachers leave in less than five years; 20% leave in their first year. On top of this instability, the school administration and the school board seem determined to create more: they want to close 24 of the district’s 87 schools. The school board pumps public money to private contractors at more than three time the average (per student) of all California school districts, and has twice the administrative overhead. And as I showed in what I wrote last week, the school board continues to fudge the books to hide unallocated revenue and then funnel it to still more private contracts, rather than to what teachers, students, and staff need. Clearly, the priorities are upside down.

OEA is demanding:

A 12% salary increase over three years (3% retroactive to last school year; 4% retroactive to the start of this school year; and 5% next school year;

Class size max reduction (by 4 in the highest needs schools; by 2 elsewhere);

Caseload reduction (for special ed teachers; counselors; etc.)

These are modest demands. More is needed, but it’s a start. And there’s one more demand: no school closures.

The school board and the superintendent claim that they just don’t have the money to meet these demands. That’s almost obscene, given the outrageous level of outsourcing and the indefensible level of administrative overhead noted above. By my calculations, the district has the money to meet OEA’s salary demands for last year and the current year without running a deficit. The class size and caseload demands won’t kick in until next year (it’s too late to implement them for this school year), so the cost of these demands won’t be incurred until next year (2019-20 school year. That leaves time enough to redirect adequate funds by reducing the level of outsourcing and eliminating redundant highly paid executive positions from administration.

But to rebuild and improve Oakland public education, more will be needed. Over the past 15 years, great damage has been done. The adult education program, which had over 30,000 students, has been cut by over 90%. Libraries have been closed and librarian positions eliminated in most middle schools and high schools. Many academic and vocational programs have been eliminated. Public school enrollment has fallen by one-third over the past fifteen years, while charter school enrollment has increased eight-fold, to 30% of total enrollment (Oakland has the highest percentage of charter school enrollment of any large school district in the state, and the ninth highest among large school districts (enrollment greater than 25,000) in the country. A recent study estimated that charter schools drain $57 million from Oakland public schools.

So more money is needed to provide what’s really needed. But the fact is, the current school board is addicted to shoveling money to their friends and allies — awarding private contracts or handing them $150,000+ / year executive positions. Consequently, additional money that comes in — for example, increased state funding, as recommended in Newsom’s proposed education budget — needs to be locked down for teachers, students, and school maintenance and programs, so the board can’t shovel it down the privatizing drain.

Back to the OEA strike. Today has been a successful day.  Tomorrow teachers from around the state will be demonstrating solidarity with the Oakland strike, teachers from around the region will be converging on Oakland to join picket lines, and there will be a noon rally and march “against the corporate billionaires”.  Hopefully, the energy and enthusiasm shown today will continue to build, and community support will grow. It seems likely that if the strike continues and the militancy grows, big Democratic Party players — like Senator Harris and Governor Newsom — will try to step in and orchestrate a settlement, with the likely collaboration of the CTA leadership. So maybe right now, the Dems and the CTA tops are just trying to let frustrated Oakland teachers blow off steam. But there’s always the chance that when the lid is lifted a bit to allow out steam, it just might provide an opening to blow the whole lid off. 

Capitalism's Mass Media Decides What We Read About Racism and What We Don't.

A post shared by Cecily Strong (@cecilystrong) on Jun 23, 2018 at 7:12pm PDT

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

This is a spoof I guess someone put on Instagram about white people calling the police on black folks for absurd reasons. I should add that it's probably much less common for black folks to call the cops for any reason because the cops may end up arresting them, or shooting them or their kids.

I don't know much about the barbecue woman except both of these women were slightly overweight, well educated petit bourgeois. The white petit bourgeois, even those liberal ones so terrified of being termed racist in any shape or form that they adopt the most groveling, condescending attitude to people of color, have contempt for workers from any background.

This clip is very funny and I am not criticizing it for being funny and satirical in pointing out the perversity of racism. But the capitalist mass media has made great use of these stories all over the world, it's a way of "sticking it to the yanks" for liberal outlets like the Guardian and in similar publications. As there is never a class analysis in US mass media, or rarely so, those reading it will look no further in to the issue, simply condemning the entire US working class despite these two examples involving two very middle class women. I am not saying the working class is free of racism or anything like that.

The stories are spread in ways that the millions of working class people here and around the world who are less likely to read analytical articles of any length will be informed about what's going on here in the US and hopefully draw certain conclusions about the US, or more accurately, draw conclusions about the US the owners of the mass media want them to.  It's akin to the 30 second political ads here that say nothing about the real politics of the candidate,

I lived and worked in Oakland for 30 years. It is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the US I think. It has a great history, the 1946 General Strike, Marcus Garvey, the Black Panthers, Huey Newton and others. There were Asian socialist parties that fought for rights, against repression and the exclusionary laws here.  It is segregated in a way many areas of Britain were not especially when I grew up there. I remember going to Hackney where I would see middle class whites, Jews, Muslims and working class native born English all living in close proximity. There were council flats there. I never ever saw a gated community growing up in England, they are everywhere here.  I went to housing schemes, what we call projects in the US and there were white and black people living in them.  I do believe the US is much more racially compartmentalized.

But when I go to Oakland now I hardly recognize it. The working class in Oakland, ever since I arrived here in 1973, has been overwhelmingly black or people of color. Much more diversified now, Latinos, Samoans, Tongans, Vietnamese, Cambodians Laotians and more. It's always had a vibrant Chinatown but the young Chinese are moving to the suburbs. I worked the streets and knew every neighborhood but the techie's and middle class have been moving in in droves. Gentrification has had a much more savage affect on the black population than some spoiled racist petit bourgeois calling the police on a child.  Trendy restaurants and shops are all over the place to accommodate the hipsters I think the term is for them. They wear black a lot, ride bicycles often and drink good coffee.  They are mostly white but not exclusively. The other aspect of this is that black people that have owned homes in some areas like West and North Oakland have done well out of it. I know a few black contractors that have made plenty of money renovating the old homes built in the 1940's and earlier. Bust for the vast majority of black workers, its driving them out.

Even deep east Oakland property is so expensive it's almost impossible for a young couple to purchase a home there. My little place we bought for $57,000 in 1980 is purportedly worth close to half a million now. Wages and economic power has have not risen in the same way. $15 an hour won't cover that mortgage.

What capitalism is doing here is driving out the urban working class and poor and the more affluent white (and Asian) middle class is coming in. Many of the black folks I once knew moved out to Vallejo and further east. The white workers that left for the suburbs in the post war era are not doing so well now either mind you.

My purpose for this is not to underplay the nastiness of some white petit bourgeois calling the cops on an 8 year old girl selling water. Anyone reading this is horrified by it. Cannot fathom it. But what will never get the same media coverage and yet is by far a more savage racist assault on people of color, is the affect US capitalism has on all of us but especially the poor and people of color. And all too often, Native Americans are left out of the "people of color" category, left out in people's minds anyway, and their conditions are catastrophic.

Also, the white working class has been driven back over the past 40 years. The life expectancy of white workers is declining and this is a "privileged" group. Racism is an integral part of the capitalist mode of production. The great US revolutionary Maclolm X wrote that "You can't have capitalism without racism". We don't hear that quite too often, especially from the radical black petit bourgeois for obvious reasons; they don't oppose capitalism, they just want to advance their individual and class positions within it. The white racist ruling class are forced to recognize people like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King but they are portrayed simply as "black" leaders who wanted justice for "their" people. Their ideas and views of the world are glossed over yet both were discussing and moving to socialist ideas before they were assassinated by the state and they were both moving closer to organized labor.

So enough already Richard. Enjoy the humor in the clip, there's humor in all situations, and I know from my associations with long specially oppressed minorities, the Irish and the blacks, that humor has long been a part of their revolutionary histories and struggles against oppression.

But lets not lose track of what racism is, who benefits from it and in what way and through what polices. Racism is a social problem, woven in to the very fabric of capitalist society, it's not just about calling the cops on someone for barbecuing. And the owners of the media that profit from these type of stories know what to make public fodder and what not.

Wealth, Poverty, and Social Control in the Golden State

By Luke Pickrell

 In a capitalist society, the wealth of the working class is appropriated and hoarded by a tiny elite - the ruling class. This ruling class creates a state in its image in order to protect its wealth and ensure its continued enrichment at the expensive of all subordinates. This state, which includes the police, becomes increasingly brutal as class lines sharpen during periods of economic instability - dips, crashes, and depressions that are built into the economic system.

California, the largest and most diverse state in the U.S., is a fine example of a state in the decaying stages of capitalism, during which the misery of the many increases alongside the enrichment of the few, and the armed wing of the state polices the widening class divide with increasing brutality.

Wealth
In 2015, the state of California passed in front of Brazil and France to become the 6th largest economy in the world. The top ten economies in the world are now the U.S. ($17.8 trillion GDP in 2015), China ($10.9), Japan ($4.1), Germany ($3.6), the UK ($2.9), California ($2.5), France ($2.4), India ($2.1), Italy and Brazil ($1.8 each). (The global collapse of capitalism - some predict a new collapse within the year - is reflected in the fact that only the U.S., China, California and India have growing economies). Only the U.S. (536) and China (213) have more billionaires than California (131 in 2015). The combined wealth of these individuals is worth more than the GDP of many countries. The governor of California, Jerry Brown, has a net worth of $4 million, and California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is worth a whopping $74 million (making her the 3rd wealthiest member of congress). Larry Page of Google (Mountain View, CA) and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook (Menlo Park, CA) are multi-billionaires behind corporations ingrained in the bourgeois state and its apparatuses of surveillance and control.

Poverty
While a handful Californian's are incredibly wealthy, the majority are very poor. In fact, California is the most unequal state in one of the most unequal countries in the world (just as  Louisiana is the most incarcerated state in the most incarcerated nation in the world). California has the highest poverty rate in the country, with %27 of children living in poverty; in 2013, 48.8% of children in the state were poor or near the poverty line.

That same year, around one quarter of the state's total population lived in poverty. One in ten Cal State University students are homeless, and one in four go hungry. Housing prices across the state continue to rise, and many people in the Bay Area are being forced out. In San Francisco, low wages and increasing home prices ($2,795 average for a one bedroom, $4,222 for a two) are forcing hundreds of school teachers and paraprofessionals to leave. Rents have skyrocketed in Oakland, with many forced to work two or three jobs just to get by and many people, most from poorer black neighborhoods, being pushed farther and farther away. 

As the wealth gap (and therefore the life expectancy gap, literacy gap, education gap, etc.) increases, the class differences in society become increasingly pronounced. The ruling elite must maximize profit and maintain social control, and an increasingly repressive state is needed to control people as they are thrown into deeper and deeper poverty; a brutal economic system requires a brutal state to defend it. In step the police, who in California have time and time again been exposed as agents of the status quo who rape, murder, and pillage with impunity.

Social Control
 In 1966 the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland largely in response to police brutality against working class blacks. One of the many tactics of the Panthers - dubbed public enemy number one by J. Edgar Hoover - was to police the OPD. Armed with guns, pencil and paper, and citizens' rights leaflets, Panthers would follow OPD cars, stop whenever they stopped, and make their presences known to the officers. (It’s no surprise that the nation’s first gun control laws were passed in California – with help from then-governor Richard Nixon and the NRA – to take guns away from the Panthers). Since 2000, Oakland cops have killed 90 people - 74% working class and black.

In 1996 a group of four OPD officers - the "Rough Riders" - began a spree of violence that led to $11 million in settlements and 90 cases being thrown out. In 2000, all four officers were charged with terrorizing and beating suspects, planting evidence, and making false arrests over the four-year period. (An all-white jury would later clear the four officers on eight counts and deadlock on the remaining 27). Since 2003, the OPD has been overseen by a federal monitoring board (labeled "independent" but currently led by a former Rochester police chief) and mandated to make certain reforms - changes the OPD consistently fails to make.

In 2009 Oscar Grant was killed by a shot to the back from Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officer Johannes Mehserle (video).

Throughout 2011 Occupy Oakland protestors were routinely harassed and beaten by police, and agent provocateurs infiltrated encampments. Protestor Scott Olsen was nearly killed by a non-lethal round to the forehead (video). Officers covered their name tags with black tape, illegally detained several reporters and protestors, and abused and denied council and medical care to many of those in custody. Settlements for police abuse during Occupy Oakland have topped $6 million, a portion of the nearly $74 million the city has spent since 1990 to settle over 417 lawsuits against officers - the largest sum spent by any police department in California.

In November of that same year, UC Davis police officers harassed and pepper sprayed protesting students (video).

In 2014 a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer was filmed savagely beating a 51-year-old black woman. No charges were filed (video).

In March of 2015 A Los Angeles cop executed Charly "Africa" Keunang with at least two "contact gunshot wounds" (muzzle of the gun pressed directly to the skin) to the chest. Keunang had been living on Skid Row, one of the most impoverished areas in the state.
On December 2 San Francisco cops executed Mario Woods firing squad style as he walked away from them (video).

In June of 2016 the OPD faced a PR setback when department practices of sex trafficking and statutory rape became impossible to hide. The now well-known incident involved “at least fourteen Oakland police officers, three Richmond police, four Alameda County sheriff's deputies, and a federal officer.” Mayor Libby Schaaf is scrambling to keep her job.
Less than three weeks ago police in Castaic shot and killed William Bowers, a homeless white man riding a bike.

Reality
This is the reality of life in California, the great liberal Golden State - extreme wealth for the ruling class and its ilk, a sliver of mobility for a lucky few, increasing immobility for many, and dire poverty for the rest. Police officers in California have free reign to terrorize and control the majority of the state's population in order to enforce foreclosures and displacements, protect private property, and crush political dissent. While women, those gender nonconforming, and people of color are particularly vulnerable to the state's racist and divisive filth, all those who sell their labor power in order to make a living are susceptible to state violence. The lumpenproletariat and reserve pool of labor are deemed criminal and rendered vulnerable to the full brutality of the capitalist state.

As the wealth gap in California becomes more pronounced - as school budgets are further slashed, housing prices rise, medical expenses increase, social services are gutted - the police will be tasked with subduing an increasingly politicized working class. Already, the police are being given new weapons to control the masses. The battle lines have long ago been drawn around the class divisions in society, and the current mood is captured well in the advertising for Urban Shield 2016: "Intense Training for Intense Times."

Oakland Schools Sup't Wilson's war on education

OUSD Superintendent Antwan Wilson

Antwan Wilson's Idea of Cutting Administration: Pad the Top, Chop From the Bottom

by Jack Gerson

Have you ever wondered why the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) regularly breaks the law by violating the state education code mandate that at least 55% of educational expenses go to classroom instruction, when virtually every other district in the state meets this stipulation year in and year out?  Have you ever wondered where the money goes, if not to the classroom? Well, I just looked over the salaries of new superintendent Antwan Wilson and his top administrators, and it sure says a lot about where some of that money is poured. And about the priorities of a school board and administration that pretends to turn its pockets inside out and cry, "We're cash-strapped!" to explain why they pay teachers at the bottom of the county and near the bottom of the state. What are those priorities?

Grossly overpay top administrators? CHECK.

Create high-paying positions for your friends and bring them in from over a thousand miles away. CHECK.

Pad the payroll with redundant positions by hiring several,people to do the same job, and then paying them all exorbitant salaries.  CHECK.

Give nearly all administrators pay hikes from last year's salaries far greater than the total raise for teachers over the past 12 years. CHECK.

Continue to outsource at double the state average, and make sure some of your old buddies from Denver get a cut of the action.  CHECK.

Superintendent Wilson says otherwise. (See http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fe670bac28a9b16700ef0a4d9&id=b4ab226e52&e=4bb7b6c078).  He claims that “we are directing every new dollar we can to our teachers and classrooms to better serve our children”. Is that so? He’s clearly overlooked a few dollars — in fact, he’s overlooked several millions of them. For starters:

---Antwan Wilson, Superintendent of Schools: salary $280,000 / year ($30,000 / year more than Gary Yee was paid last year as acting superintendent).

---Allan Smith, Chief of Schools: Salary $175,000 / year -- brought in by Antwan Wilson from Denver Public Schools.  "Chief of Schools" is a brand new title created by Wilson for Allan Smith.

---Yana Smith (spouse of Allan Smith), Chief of Organizational Effectiveness and Culture: Salary $155,000 / year -- brought in by Antwan Wilson from Denver Public Schools.  "Chief of Organizational Effectiveness and Culture" is a brand new title created by Wilson for Yana Smith.

We don't need both a Superintendent of Schools (Antwan Wilson, $280,000 / year) *and* a Chief of Schools (Allan Smith, $175,000 / year).  And we have absolutely no need to pay $155,000 / year to a "Chief of Organizational Effectiveness and Culture" (Yana Smith, spouse of "Chief of Schools" Smith).

But wait, there's more.  Vernon Hal's title used to be "Chief Financial Officer." Now he's the Deputy Superintendent for Business.  We don't need both a deputy superintendent for business (Vernon Hal, $193,000 / year) and a Chief Financial Officer (Ruth Alahydoian , $150,000 / year).

Then there’s Brigitte Marshall. Four years ago, she was in charge of the Adult Ed program, and presided over its destruction, shutting down 95% of that formerly vital program. Based on this atrocity, since then her career has taken off and she has received promotion after promotion and raise after raise. Now her title is “Chief Talent Officer” (I am not making this up!) and her base salary is $160,000 / year.

And let's not overlook two more colleagues  Wilson brought in from Denver:

---Bernard McCune, for whom he created the post of "Deputy Chief, Post Secondary Readiness", with base salary of $157,500 / year. 

---Devin Dillon, the new Chief Academic Officer, raking in $175,000 / year.

Superintendent Wilson also displayed his priorities by filling the vacant OUSD Chief of Police position -- hello Jeffrey Godown, goodbye $150,000 / year plus benefits.

This is just a sample. The story is similar for the two dozen highest paid administrators. Indeed, the cumulative base pay for the inner circle (“chiefs”, deputy and assistant superintendents, etc.) has gone up by nearly $1 million between last school year and this one — from $2.81 million last year to $3.76 million this year. This increase comes from a combination of generously increasing salaries and creating five new “chief” titles (including the above-referenced “Chief of Schools” and “Chief of Organizational Effectiveness”.}

So if Wilson is cutting the central administration budget, much of the cuts are likely coming from the lower paid administrative support. This would be a repetition of what Randy Ward did in 2003 - 6 when the state came in. He brought in all kinds of Broad Foundation graduates and residents at the high end (Troy Christmas; Jonathan Klein; and many others) and promoted some ambitious locals, while laying waste to central services -- eliminating central copy services, almost annihilating maintenance (electricians, painters, window repair, etc.) and thus forcing schools to buy services from the likes of Kinko's. Randy Ward made other cuts “away from the classroom” — of clerical, cafeteria, custodial, and other essential school classified staff positions. 

Today, despite all of Antwan Wilson’s rhetoric, we hear reports that although Oakland High projects increased enrollment for next year, it is scheduled to lose several FTEs. So when Antwan Wilson says that he’s “budgeting for the classroom”, please excuse us for thinking, “Shades of the state takeover. More, needless, high-level and high-salaried administrators; salary boosts at the high end; chopping classified staff and low-level administrative support jobs.” Unacceptable.

If Antwan Wilson means what he says, here’s what he could do:

(1) Eliminate high-end bloat. Start by cutting redundant dead wood. No need for a Chief of Schools — there’s already a Superintendent of Schools. No need for a Chief Financial Officer — there’s already a Deputy Superintendent for Business. No need for a “Chief Talent Officer” (I trust no explanation is needed) nor a “Chief of Organizational Effectiveness”. Eliminating those four positions alone would save over $800,000 in combined salary and benefits. And that’s just a start. Other cabinet posts could be eliminated. 

(2) Give up that $280,000 / year base salary. Instead, cap all district salaries at teacher maximum salary (currently $84,000 / year if annualized to a 12-month basis). We hear  from the board, and from folks like Wilson, about how important teachers are. But when it comes to compensation, the well’s dry — virtually no raises since 2002. Why should administrators be paid more than teachers and staff? Why should we tolerate this gross and widening inequality?  Reducing the salaries of Wilson and his cabinet to teacher max, combined with cutting redundant cabinet positions, would save close to $3 million / year in salaries and benefits. And beyond the cabinet, there are 200 - 300 additional administrative positions salaried above teacher max -- many of them $50,000 / year or more higher in base salary alone.  My rough estimate is that capping all salaries at teacher maximum would save in the neighborhood of $12 million / year.

(3) Systematically review and reduce outsourcing to private consultants. We've noticed that Antwan Wilson is not shy about bringing in folks who worked for him in Denver and either creating high paying district jobs for them, or giving them lucrative contracts.  Nothing new here. For years, OUSD has been even more generous to private contractors than it has been to its high-paid administrators -- and that's generous indeed. In fact, five years ago OEA and CTA presented data to the Public Employee Relations Board's Factfinding Panel showing conclusively that proportional to its size, OUSD had twice the administrative overhead and twice the outsourced contracting of the average California school district. OUSD ought to be able to cut back in this area by as much as $20 million / year or more -- and where feasible redirect the work to unionized district employees.

So adding it up, we’re talking $30 million / year or more. And that ain’t chump change. Heck, with that, even the inept and malevolent OUSD administration could probably abide by state law and devote at least 55% of educational expenses to classroom instruction, providing (at last!) adequate raises to all schoolworkers, while at the same time preserving and even cutting class size (by hiring more certificated staff) and increasing support (by hiring more classified staff).

Victory Against Police Censorship in Oakland CA

by Jack Gerson*

On November 19, supporters of academic freedom and opponents of police censorship and repression won an important victory when Oakland school district administration announced that access to the Urban Dreams social justice units would be restored to the district's website. Access had been denied for 7 months, after the Fraternal Order of Police lobby and Fox News kicked up a storm over a lesson plan that asked students to compare the mass media's suppression of the facts about the railroading of Mumia Abu Jamal and of his writings and with the suppression of Martin Luther King's radical indictment of corporate power and his organizing against it.

For seven months, the Oakland school district allowed -- indeed, were the executors of -- police censorship of school curricula. A persistent campaign torestore Urban Dreams by several Oakland teachers -- initially, only a few of us were actively organizing -- managed to increasingly gather support from local and state teacher unions and from national figures (Emmy Award winning actor Ed Asner; Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist Alice Walker), and it was this support that got the school district to finally end the censorship and restore the lesson plans.

So if we fight, we can win. But this is only a small part of a much larger fight. The following illustrates both that the impact of the movement is growing, and that our opponents will fight to retain their brutal and haughty power.

St. Louis Rams Players Support Michael Brown

Six St. Louis Rams (NFL) players gave the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" salute yesterday in solidarity with the nationwide protests against the murder of Michael Brown by a Ferguson cop (Ferguson is a St. Louis suburb). This indicates how deeply Brown's murder has been felt, and the scope of the reaction to it. The Rams' action recalls the clenched fist black power solidarity salute by John Carlos and Tommy Smith from the medals stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

Predictably, the St. Louis cops 'union' issued a statement demanding that the players be disciplined. Once more, the cops confirm that they are out to suppress dissent -- especially when it's directed at them. The out of control cops insist that they must have full control and the right to crush those who protest their brutal tactics, their criminalization and victimization (especially of young people of color) and even their murders.

Here's a link to the story in today's Guardian online:  http://gu.com/p/43nxn

* Jack Gerson is a retired Oakland Teacher

Alice Walker Opposes Police Censorship of Oakland Schools Curriculum

Alice Walker

November 17, 2014             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker is calling on the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) school board to restore a website of social justice lesson plans. OUSD took down the "Urban Dreams" website last May, caving in to pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police and Fox News.

Ms. Walker (awarded a Pulitzer in 1983 for her novel "The Color Purple") has written to OUSD Superintendent Antwan Wilson and OUSD school board President David Kakishiba saying:

"I am dismayed to learn that the Oakland school board has dismantled a website of social justice lesson plans because the police objected to it.  The board has a duty to defend students' right to learn against police interference. I am asking the Oakland school district to repost the Urban Dreams website.

"The police attack on Urban Dreams is part of a long campaign to injure and defame political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, a brilliant journalist and author who is innocent of all charges against him. In October the police obtained a state gag law in Pennsylvania specifically intended to silence Mumia Abu-Jamal. One lesson on the Urban Dreams website in Oakland asked students to compare media suppression of Mumia's writings with suppression of the radical thoughts of Martin Luther King, and the police call for censorship was meant to shut out the words of both of these defenders of freedom."

Mumia Abu-Jamal had been an award-winning radio reporter in Philadelphia when in 1982 he was falsely convicted of killing a policeman.  Another man, a career criminal, confessed to the murder, but was not allowed to testify by the police and the courts. From prison Mumia has published eight books on history, law, and religion and recorded scores of commentaries and editorials for public radio.

In her message to Superintendent Wilson and school board President Kakishiba, Alice Walker said, "I hope that the educators of the Oakland school board will defend free speech and academic freedom by restoring the Urban Dreams website."

Earlier, seven-time Emmy Award-winning actor Ed Asner had written to the board, saying "This email is to request that the Urban Dreams website be reinstated without deletions and to let academic freedom prevail!

Oakland Teachers for Mumia (retired OUSD teachers who organized the 1999 Oakland schools teach-in on Mumia and the death penalty) will be at the school board meeting this Wednesday (November 19) to deliver Alice Walker's call for the board to repost the Urban Dreams website -- fully intact. We urge the public to support this call for free speech and academic freedom, and to insist that the police not be allowed to dictate what is and isn't taught in our public schools, by writing to OUSD Superintendent Antwan Wilson (antwan.wilson@ousd.k12.ca.us) and OUSD school board President David Kakishiba (david.kakishiba@ousd.k12.ca.us).

Oakland Teachers for Mumia (communard2@juno.com)

    Bob Mandel (510.523.7892)

    Bob Wells (510.595-7811)

    Jack Gerson (510.658.5520)

A no vote by AC Transit workers has the potential to usher in a new era for the labor movement.

BART and AC Transit workers show unity at board meeting

by Richard Mellor

Afscme local 444, retired

For the last few months here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have been subjected a barrage of anti-worker, anti-union propaganda in the 1%’s media.  The reason their media has been paying so much attention to worker and labor issues rather than which Hollywood star has abandoned Scientology or the child of those royal wasters in Britain, is the ongoing back and forth between transit workers and the state.

There in no doubt in my mind that there is a bit of a shift in the mood here and this is being manifested in increased strike activity or the threat of it.  Bay Area Rapid Transit workers (BART), members of ATU 1555, Afscme 3993 and SEIU 1021 struck for four and a half days in early July and have been in a back and forth struggle to stave off concessions with the state intervening to keep them on the job. 

City of Oakland workers, also members of SEIU 1021 struck for one day about the same time and have since settled (I do not know if the members have voted) and Alameda County bus drivers, members of ATU 192 have also been in negotiations.  Unfortunately, despite the tremendous unity and desire to fight together the ranks of ATU 1555 and 192 displayed at a Transit Board meeting some weeks ago, the leadership of 192 refused to make joint strike action a priority.  They had their members work in the first BART strike.

 

AC Transit drivers will be voting on a concessionary contract this coming Saturday that their executive board is recommending they accept.  The vote by the leadership to recommend the contract was not unanimous; it passed by a vote of 8 for and 5 against according to reports I’ve heard. It is at times like these that mass consciousness can be broadened as the real nature of our relationship with the boss becomes more apparent. 

Part of the reason we are seeing this increased activity in my opinion is due to the nature of the period. The bosses are feeling very confident after years of successful attacks on wages, benefits and conditions in the private sector in particular. The victory over the autoworkers cannot be underestimated, as these workers were a benchmark for the entry of what many workers here in the US refer to as the middle class, basically, decent paying union jobs with good benefits, pensions and lifetime employment. 

We should not underestimate the level of the decline either.  Caterpillar shut a plant down in London Ontario and moved to the US Midwest where wages are 50% lower. Even the head of Fiat threatened his workers he would move production perhaps to the US if they didn’t accept concessions. Who would have dreamed it 40 years ago? 

This war on workers has produced results. “Manufacturing in the US is more and more attractive,” an economist for the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation tells the Wall Street Journal, by attractive he means wages have been driven significantly lower. Bloomberg Business Week.  pointed out that US bosses get almost 25% more goods and services out of us than they did in 1999 with the same number of workers and as wages have declined.  “It’s as if $2.5 trillion worth of stuff---the equivalent of the entire U.S. economy circa 1958—materialized out of thin air” this sober magazine of the 1% adds.Did we get any of that?

The shift now is to the public sector with its much higher union density. Some 35% of public sector workers are unionized compared to around 7% in the private sector. We have seen savage attacks on teachers, and municipal workers and the reduced services that go along with them. Public expenditure crowds private capital from the marketplace and reduces opportunities for profit. 

Social Security, transport, utilities like water, are all in their sights as there is money to be made here and there is less public control if these vital industries are privatized.  Education is a billion dollar industry which is why the teachers unions have to be crushed.  This is a war on the public sector which is why the negotiations with the BART workers are so contentious. They are not going along with it

ATU 192 and the bus drivers vote Saturday and these brothers and sisters are faced with a decision. I had a similar decision some years ago in 1997 when I was a rank and file negotiator for my local, AFSCME local 444 at EBMUD, the water district. We had been in negotiations for months.  The bosses were determined to eliminate our COLA clause and we went round and round about that. 

We had formed a solidarity committee that went to other locals in the area as well as the welfare and unemployed offices as we had demands for 50 union jobs on the table and other issues. We worked in areas of high unemployment and felt it crucial that we fight for jobs for the communities in which we worked. We urged the community to join our solidarity committee and help fight for more jobs for the community.

At one point we realized we could win no more at the table, as in the last analysis it is the potential power and intervention of the rank and file and our allies that gets results.  Three of us on the negotiating team believed we could get more and we planned to recommend against the contract. But we realized we could not recommend a no vote without putting forward a plan.  We had to make it clear that simply sending us back in to negotiate was pointless as nothing more could be won through bargaining, the members themselves had to become active.

We recommended the no vote when it was our turn to speak to our members at the contract ratification meeting.  We made it clear though that if they vote no, they can’t go fishing.  We can win more we told them but you have to join the solidarity committee and build it.  You have to become an activist yourself, help coordinate visits to others union's rank and file, workplaces and where workers congregate.  They had to start with our sister local the white-collar union and its members who were our co-workers.

In short, we said that we have a plan, that we rely on our own strength as opposed to mediators or Democratic politicians who are often brought in by the heads of organized Labor in these instances but are worthless. And we become involved in mobilizing the rest of the labor movement and the community.

As it was, they chose the contract as the line of least resistance and voted it up. It was a good contract by most standards but they have, like all workers, been sliding down the concessionary road leaving an uncertain future for the younger workers. The bosses won't let up.

If I were a member of the ATU going to vote on Saturday I would vote against the contract which is concessionary; we have to put a stop to this at some point. But I would have to explain to my co-workers that we cannot vote no and hope more is forthcoming at the table.  The employers mean business here. A no vote would give a boost to BART workers who are under a major assault and give AC Transit workers an opportunity to reach out to them and return to the mood of unity in action that was likely derailed by the leadership during BART’s strike in July. I would argue for a rank and file strike and solidarity committee to be formed that would do this and that could leaflet BART work areas and wherever BART workers congregate including their union hall.

Rank and file committees like these could be set up in each workplace and unions under any name that explains they are serious about winning, ATU 192 for a stronger Union, SEIU 1021 for a stronger union etc.

The leadership will likely oppose such developments as so far, every step that could have strengthened the workers and win a victory has been avoided.  These committees can call for demands to be put on the table that take workers forward, absolutely no concessions, more jobs, free transportation for seniors, increased bus routes, half fare for people on state assistance or welfare and the unemployed. 

The demand for a $15 an hour minimum wage linked to more jobs will have a tremendous affect on the low waged and youth.  Rally’s can be organized to help build the intra union unity and solidarity with the community so that a successful strike can be won in 60 days and further attempts by the state to deny the right to strike can be challenged through  sheer numbers.

There is also a solidarity committee that has been formed to assist transit and any workers in this major struggle going on in the Bay Area and rank and file union/workplace committees should link and integrate with this group.  We can win here but it means every worker must become an activist and we must reject the idea that we can only demand what the bosses, the Democrats, the media and most of the Union officialdom deems is realistic. We must demand what people need to lead a decent and fruitful life, society can afford it, it’s just a matter of priorities; money for wars and bankers instead of for social need. We cannot continue to operate in the old way as union members, pay our dues and leave it to someone else.

I hope the brothers and sisters of ATU 192 vote against their contract and take some of the steps I think could deflect this attempt to drive us further backwards. We owe it to our youth, those who fought before us and whose sacrifice gave us the benefits we have today, and we owe it to ourselves.

We have the power; we have the numbers.  Society has the money.  The move to coordinate action between AC Transit workers and BART workers would send a message to management that they’re faced with a fight and send shock waves through the corporate boardrooms and shake their friends in Congress. Motions could be made at both unions for their leaderships to call a press conference to announce the introduction of new demands at the table due to management's intransigence and union busting and to announce that the 1%'s austerity agenda is going to be halted here in the Bay Area with this dispute. The present leadership will no doubt oppose such a motion but the struggle for it will clarify what needs to be done and rank and file committees can take these steps.

There is much anger out there and many unions are involved in contract disputes at the moment.  With the right approach, we can make some history here in the Bay Area.

But to vote no on a contract that a leadership recommends is a serious decision with serious consequences. We can’t vote no and go fishin’.

Chip Johnson attacks City of Oakland workers on behalf of the 1%

Oakland city workers downtown yesterday

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Chip Johnson writes a twice-weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle and in this morning’s paper makes the case for the 1% in the dispute between the City of Oakland and its workers, members of SEIU Local 1021.

“Oakland Can’t Afford Raise Workers Want” Johnson’s headline announces. And what’s worse, asking for the city to pay for health and pension costs is pure “folly”.  Johnson makes the case for the 1% under the cloak of defending ordinary folk, “It’s not fair to ask citizens, including some who’ve lost as much or more than city workers to foot the bill”  Johnson writes. Despite not having a raise in almost 6 years, the Union is being unrealistic if not downright greedy because the workers don’t really understand how the “..economic crisis has affected the taxpayers who have to foot the bill.”, Johnson writes.

Johnson goes on to thrash Oakland’s Mayor who set the police on the Occupy Oakland  as weak and city government as, “..the weakest kneed municipal government in the Bay Area.”

Johnson’s ideological offensive against city workers will get an echo as it is true many other workers are worse off than city workers and have nowhere near the same benefits and many people have suffered great depravation due to the capitalist crisis and the bailout of the bankers and other coupon clippers by the US taxpayer.

It will get more of an echo than it need to because the labor officialdom directing this dispute does not have a real counter to Johnson’s phony defense of the citizens of Oakland.  In a dispute like this, the Union leadership should make it absolutely clear that the citizens of Oakland should not be made to pay for city worker's raises and benefits.  No taxes of workers or the middle class should be the slogan---“Make the rich pay.” The citizens of Oakland cannot afford these wars, cannot afford the billions spent spying on us, cannot afford to pay for the yachts that the coupon clippers like to float around in. This is what Johnson should be saying.

Not only that, there should be more city jobs and increased hiring.  A shorter workweek with no loss in pay is one way of getting that ball rolling.  As for public sector pensions, it should be made clear in disputes like these that the Union demands all workers receive these pensions.  As for health insurance, it is an insane situation to have to pay a middleman, an insurance company, a fee so that you can receive medical attention.  A national health system extended to all is crucial to improve a failed and hugely expensive (about 18% of GDP) US health system dominated by corporations and the coupon clippers that run them. Most bankruptcy for workers and mom and pops are caused by medical bills.

When I ran for Oakland City Council in 1996 it was made clear to me that the decisions that affect the workers and residents of this city are made behind the scenes by investors and moneymen and they are based on such issues as Pacific Rim trade and global economics.

Oakland city workers, no more than any other city, cannot defeat what amounts to the 1% and global capitalism alone. And this war cannot be won without countering the propagandists of the 1% like Chip Johnson.

We know there is plenty of money in society and we make it clear that we reject the idea that one section of the working class must pay to keep food in the mouths of others or a roof over their head. There are coupon clippers that earn $5 billion a year on investments; there is trillions being spent on predatory wars abroad making the world safe for capitalism and to keep labor cheap and cowed.  The four WalMart heirs have more wealth than almost 50 million Americans. This is where the money is, in the pockets and banks of people who do no productive work but live off the work of others who do.

Lastly, when Johnson attacks Oakland City Workers for their pay and benefits he is attacking all of us because it’s part of the 1%’s strategy to bring us all down to the lowest level. 

Yesterday’s strike was really just a protest organized by the Union leadership to let off a little steam.  They recognize that their members are angry and looking to fight back but one day strikes are not sufficient.

SEIU’s rank and file have to counter their leadership’s limited approach and ensure that the public is won to their side by making it clear they are fighting for the public not just themselves and do not expect other workers to foot the bill. In this way the community can be drawn in to the struggle and our collective strength increased.  Most importantly we must reject the propaganda that there is no money in society. There's plenty of money; how its allocated is the issue.

No to austerity

Jobs for all

For a $20 an hour minimum wage

Health care for all

End all wars and occupations

Organize the unorganized.

No taxes on workers or the middle class

Make the rich pay.