The May Day protests did not make much news, the freeway traffic was not any lighter and the LAPD has not new problems from crowd control handling. Now what we have, according to the news is that the UTLA, the teachers union, is calling for a one-day strike on May 15, 2009. The L.A. Times reported this planned action that is supposed to influence the LAUSD Board of Education in acting on the budget without cutting any teachers. "L.A. teachers union plans 1-day strike; The work stoppage could fall on a day for AP testing." By Howard Blume May 2, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd2-2009may02,0,5015121.story
The teachers have voted their approval of the action and it looks like you can look for that to happen. May 15th is a Friday and the story points out that the month of May has lots of testing events happening. Lincoln High School's calendar http://www.lincolnhs.org/apps/events/view_calendar.jsp?y=2009&m=4&id=0&rn=591120 shows some of this on their website, and the strike date, 5-15-09, has a few events that could be disrupted if the teachers are missing. One event, the Jr. ROTC awards is listed on the Calendar at 1:00 p.m. and at 8:00 p.m. The first blocked out time period is probably for students to be recognized by the student body, and the evening hour is for parents and the public. That might be affected since an absence of teachers supervising supportive functions for the evening event ceremony could keep it from going on as scheduled. I think the daytime event would be a casualty for certain.
I think that the move is something that is going to lose public support and create some hostilitiy from the public. The Union and the teachers' position to save jobs in something that really is a part of the overall fallout from the economic conditions coupled with the usual ineptitude LAUSD demonstrates in handling money. I think the Board is trying to keep a safety margin my not applying all the stimulus funding at one time. That would save some jobs but the problem does not end there. The budget problems are expected to continue to the next year as well, and so the Board wants to have some resources to address the situation, at least in part.
If the strike goes on, the disruption to the students day would be very likely, even if there are other teachers who don't leave. Not all teachers are members of the UTLA, but the equivalent of "DUES" payments are taken out of the paycheck's of all the teachers anyway under some arrangement, so being a member at least lets you a vote.
Every day that's disrupted simply makes a difficult situation, providing a good level of education, that much more difficult. That goes for the students leaving campus to protest anything as well as the teachers not teaching. By the teachers actions of adding to this disruptive condition, I think it's a big negative to the role they play. What you have here is the "job preservation" role superseding the "provide an education to the students" role. Most of the newer teachers voted for the stike I would expect since they are going to be the group from which layoffs will come.
The union asks for parent suppport but the support of parents is more emotionally based that logically based overall. The story reports a parent saying, "I'm there to do whatever it takes to have my daughter get a good education." But supporting this option to arrive at a short term preservation of jobs might not be the best thing in the long run. There's still a lot to examine, but parents involvement is pretty easy to enlist if you address their emotional side and show how their child is served by it. It doesn't have to be an accurate picture, but that will get parents into this. For that reason, it's hard to use general parent assessments of the situation to be the best barometers of worthiness of the move.
We'll see if the teachers union does not hit a bad chord with the public by this move. You have to wonder if they have gone too far at this time when so many others are being laid off and my say, "Why should teachers be immune from this?"
There's also talk of an initiative to add more sales tax for education. Another bad move, in my opinion, but that's not a certain decision so far. As it is, the sales tax is too high. I don't think that all the people who voted for the sales tax really understood what the respective ballot measures really meant. Another reason for having an informed electorate and not rely on the best t.v. ads for the truth. Well, the authorization vote is done and we will see if they strike, which I say is another way to shoot yourself in the foot on this issue, and should be avoided.
Posts
