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’.

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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.

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Suspend Oakland Schools Superintendent Tony Smith

by Jack Gerson

The following leaflet was distributed at today's citywide membership meeting of the Oakland Education Association (OEA -- the Oakland teachers union). It was distributed again at this evening's meeting of the Oakland school board. For those outside the Oakland area, Tony Smith is the schools superintendent (for more details on Smith, see our previous blog post here.) Otherwise, the leaflet speaks for itself -- and it speaks volumes about the ongoing privatization and systematic dismantling of public education.

                                                   Suspend Tony Smith

                                          No More Cover-ups

             No More Victimizing Students, Staff, Community

                   No to Gary Yee as Interim Superintendent

Tony Smith is on the way out. But not soon enough.

Serious charges have been made against Smith, against the school district’s chief lawyer (Jacqueline Minor), and against past and present OUSD police chiefs Peter Sarna and James Williams.  One of the OUSD cops involved in the killing of Raheim Brown, Jonathan Bellusa, says that Smith and Minor tried to coerce him into giving the same version of the shooting as the other cop involved, Barhin Bhatt (who shot and killed Raheim Brown). Bellusa, acknowledging that he ordered the first shots, says the subsequent rounds that killed Brown were unnecessary because Brown was already incapacitated.  Bellusa says that he’s been singled out for retaliation because of this, and because he brought complaints of racist harassment against former OUSD police chief Peter Sarna.

Bellusa’s charges must be taken seriously and investigated transparently, with full community involvement. Did Smith and his legal staff try to manipulate and cover up how Raheim Brown was murdered? Why did Tony Smith want to promote Barhin Bhatt to OUSD police chief after he killed Raheim Brown (only community outrage blocked this)? Why did killer cop Bhatt command the OUSD police invasion of the Lakeview sit-in – tapping away at his gun holster in the presence of children? 

Then there’s the big picture:  the privatization and destruction of Oakland public schools, victimizing low-income areas and especially targeting the black community. We’re all aware of how OUSD was laid low by six years of state takeover: privatizing -- $80 million+ per year in outsourced contracts; downsizing – closing or “redesigning” more than half of Oakland public schools, closing libraries in most middle schools, eliminating electives, shutting down vocational programs, laying off support staff (custodial, clerical, food service, building repair and maintenance, security, …), quadrupling charter school enrollment  while shutting down public schools and driving out  nearly 20,000 public school students,  increasing teacher turnover dramatically,  punishing students for creativity and rebelliousness by focusing on rote learning and obedience enforced by high stakes testing. All low-income areas were hard hit. West Oakland and East Oakland communities were hit hardest.

Tony Smith wasn’t brought in to undo the damage done by the state takeover. No, he was brought in to continue their program, to deepen it, to give it polish and spin with “passionate” rhetoric and claims of his “racial sensitivity.” Spin and hype to cover the ongoing corporate-backed attacks. He is their creature, a creature of the Eli Broads and the Bill Gates. And he made things worse. Tony Smith went after the most vulnerable. He tried to cut early childhood education, and met teacher / staff / community resistance. He tried to cut Special Education, and met even fiercer resistance. But he did succeed in virtually eliminating the Adult education program. When Tony Smith arrived in 2009, Adult Education served 25,000 students. He shut down more than 95% of the program, victimizing the most vulnerable: single mothers, high school dropouts looking for a second chance, and immigrant workers desperate to learn language and customs.

And Smith has brought more charter schools – including semi-private ones. More school shutdowns. More program cuts. Bigger class size.  A high school dropout rate of nearly 50%. The most vulnerable areas, communities and neighborhoods were the hardest hit by the attack on anchors of the communities, their neighborhood public schools and their main source of hope, the hope of a future for their children. Heartless atrocities that can only be explained by a combination of malevolence and incompetence. Even before Smith closed five more elementary schools last June – four predominantly black, one predominantly Latino – young children in largely black Northwest Oakland (North of Macarthur, West of MLK) were being shipped by bus to schools in the far corners of East Oakland (beyond the Coliseum).

And now all hell is breaking loose. YouTube videos are circulating of students fighting students and even of students fighting teachers. We blame Smith, and we blame the board that approved his policies and, at best, turned a blind eye to what was going on. At best.

So we demand a full and transparent inquiry into Sgt. Bellusa’s charges, with full community involvement.

We demand the immediate suspension of all those named, pending the outcome of the investigation: OUSD superintendent Smith, OUSD chief legal counsel Minor, OUSD police chief Williams, Rahim Brown’s killer Bhatt.

We demand that the board not appoint Director Yee – or any other board member – to the superintendent position (be it “acting”, “interim”, or permanent) pending the completion of a full, transparent investigation of the charges.   What has Yee done to stop the blatant racism, class bias and violence embodied in the District police actions and the endless cuts in schools and programs?  Absolutely nothing!

Jack Gerson, OEA retired, former member OEA Executive Board & Bargaining Team
Bob Mandel, OEA retired, former member OEA Executive Board & Bargaining Team
Gerald Smith, former BPP, member Oscar Grant Comm. & Justice for Alan Blueford
Bob Wells, Oakland Adult Education, retired

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AC Transit board backs off fare increases---for now.

Richard Mellor in Oakland CA

I went to an AC Transit board meeting tonight as I heard there was going to be a bit of a protest by some of the users of mass transit Oakland.  "Mass" transit is actually a misnomer as public transportation is not a priority in the United States, after all, the car is king. Readers are probably aware of GM's buying up of the electric tram systems and shutting them down in order to profit from the manufacture of gasoline powered vehicles.

The event was organized by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, (ACCE).  It was a small gathering of about 25 people at the most, people who rely on the bus system to get around.  The board is considering raising fares but there was a resolution on the agenda to "defer" the July 1st fare increase "pending further analysis" by the transit district.

As a former rank and file Union activist in the public sector, I forgot what staged performances these board meetings are. The chair announced to the riders, overwhelmingly working class folks, older people  and people of color, that they could certainly speak but that they were "preaching to the choir" as the resolution was to "defer" the fare increases.

As I have not been attending these events I was not quite sure what to say when I was  called to the podium but I did talk to one of the women who organized the event and she said that the board was considering actually lowering fares in the hope that this would increase ridership, but she was not very taken in by this argument.

You get two minutes to speak at these things and I took the opportunity to inform the board that I did not consider them "the choir", and that the most likely outcome of their "analysis" would be the usual,  "Robbing Peter to pay Paul". I had read an economic report they handed out from one of these firms that present an analysis of the economy from the big capitalists point of view.  It was an attempt to portray a rosy future but repeatedly raised red flags, "uncertainty continues" and while there was  "modest growth" it comes with,  "a potentially serious upside or downside, depending how Congress decides (or doesn't decide) to act in the coming months."  One of the upsides was housing the report said but it also pointed out that in Oakland 42% of foreclosed homes between 2007 and 2011 were bought by investors. I made the point that investors are flocking in to single family foreclosed homes and renting them out, sometimes to the people that were driven from them by the bankers. This is driving up prices to some extent and the processes that brought us to this point are being played out again.  I read that some hedge funds are spending $100 million a month buying foreclosed properties.

The boards analysis then will depend on capitalism producing the goods which isn't likely to happen. I made it clear that in this scenario they will do what they usually do, set riders against the union workers that operate the system, turn one section of the working class against another, the youth against seniors, make sure one way or another we pay.

I pointed out that only by linking our struggles, relying on our own strength rather than these politicians whose job it is to implement the austerity agenda, can we turn the tide. We must build a united mass action movement out of which independent political candidates can arise.  I gave some examples of the money that is in society like the $26  to $32 trillion that the super rich have stashed away in offshore accounts to avoid taxes. 

It was a small but spirited event and I had a good time chatting to folks afterwards.  Being with working people in these situations is always refreshing but one thing always comes to mind after I speak at something like this. The  politicians just stare at you, they want you to play the game.  But so many people came up and thanked me afterwards, shook my hand, gave me a hug. It's  not that I said anything profound, anything workers don't know in our gut. But people love it when they hear someone express the anger they feel inside, say what they feel and think about things that affect us and more importantly, have a go at the establishment as we used to say. There is tremendous anger beneath the surface of US society that cannot find organizational expression. 

We can see why the trade Union leadership is so terrified of their own members and of taking a lead in any way, of confronting the bosses and the politicians of Wall Street in any way; there is nothing they fear more than providing an outlet for this anger. Where might it lead?  They have the same world view as the boss, they accept the market and capitalism, they must bail it out, help it to its feet and if that means cutting bus routes, raising fares, closing schools, cutting wages, so be it.

This blockage will be overcome at some point. Needless to say, I am glad I got out tonight.

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Tony Smith: What He Did to Oakland Schools, What He’ll Try in Chicago

By Jack Gerson            

On April 4, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Superintendent Tony Smith gave notice that he was resigning effective June 30 and relocating his family to Chicago to be near his ailing father-in-law. There is little doubt that Smith will soon be a visible presence in Chicago education – quite possibly the next CEO of Chicago Public Schools. It is important for Chicago teachers and community to know just who they are likely to be dealing with – and to those fighting back against the corporate education agenda elsewhere too, given the importance of the struggle in Chicago.

My guess is that Tony Smith’s job in Chicago will be to break or weaken the powerful alliance between teachers, students, parents and community so evident during and after last September’s teacher strike.  There are few who can match him when it comes to talking about the importance of neighborhood schools providing wraparound services to combat the effects of poverty; to recruiting, rewarding, and retaining good teachers; to stimulate authentic learning based on concepts and creativity rather than skill-based rote learning; to provide all the resources that teachers need to teach and students need to learn; to acknowledge and work to overcome racism and its effects; to forge real authentic collaboration between faculty, staff, community, students, parents, and administration; to crack down on mismanagement, excess administrative overhead, and needless outsourcing; etc.  For that is exactly what he did when he was appointed superintendent in Oakland four years ago. He talked so well, in fact, that even some skeptics were willing to suspend disbelief and give him a shot.

But in Oakland, it was just talk. Indeed, throughout his career, Smith has been a proponent of the corporate agenda for education and a practitioner of divide and conquer, of charter schools and privatization, of school closures, downsizing, and union busting. Smith takes funding cuts for granted; he goes hat in hand to his corporate patrons to solicit marginal funding (in exchange for carrying out their policies), but does not go after corporate and individual wealth. So in the end, he is just another proponent of “do more with less” austerity sacrifice. He executes the cuts demanded by his corporate patrons. This goes back to his roots.

Tony Smith graduated from U. of California Berkeley in 1992, where he was captain of the football team. He went on to get masters and doctoral degrees in education from UC Berkeley, and from 1997 to 2004 was one of the leaders of the Oakland-based Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools (BAYCES – now the National Equity Project).  At the time, BAYCES was the Oakland conduit for Gates Foundation money, and Gates was heavily promoting the “small school miracle”, engineering the breakup of thousands of comprehensive secondary schools nationally.

In Oakland, starting in about 2001, BAYCES “designed” the breakup of three of the city’s six comprehensive high schools – the three “lowest-achieving” schools, those serving the city’s highest poverty areas, with overwhelmingly black and Latino enrollments – Fremont, Castlemont, and McClymonds High Schools. I was a teacher at Castlemont, which was broken into three small schools in 2003.  BAYCES “redesign” included permanently closing the school’s library and consolidating the librarian’s position; eliminating French and eliminating the French teacher position; closing all three vocational academies (construction, culinary, and fashion), although all three provided job training in an area of sky-high unemployment for blacks and Latinos under 25 years of age.

We said at the time that this under-resourced breakup of Fremont, Castlemont, and McClymonds would drive out students and teachers, encourage the growth of charter schools, and make already unstable neighborhoods still more unstable. And that is what happened: Castlemont’s enrollment went from 1,750 in 2003 to fewer than 600 last year. McClymonds went from 1,000 to 250; Fremont from 2,300 to 750. At the same time, charter school enrollment in Oakland quadrupled.

In 2003, in the midst of the BAYCES-led breakup of Oakland secondary schools, the state of California put OUSD in receivership, ostensibly because the district’s budget was $37 million in the red. For the first two years of the state takeover, BAYCES openly co-administered OUSD with Eli Broad’s handpicked State Administrator for OUSD, Randy Ward, and an army of other Broad Institute graduates. During this period, scores of custodians, nearly all maintenance workers and many food service workers and drivers were laid off; libraries in nearly every middle school and several high schools were closed; charter school enrollment soared. Randy Ward introduced Results Based Budgeting (RBB), in which school sites were told that they were responsible for nearly all expenses, including teacher salaries – pressuring principals to try to force out veteran teachers in favor of lower-paid and untrained Teach for America recruits, and to cut supplies and resources to the bone (at more than one school, teachers were told that they needed to pay for copier paper out of their own pockets).

Tony Smith was a BAYCES leader when these policies were put in place. He left BAYCES in 2004 – not in protest, but to advance his career. From 2004 to 2007 he ran the Emeryville, California schools. From there, he went to San Francisco for a year and a half as Deputy Superintendent.

Fast forward to Spring 2012. Tony Smith has been OUSD superintendent for three years – ever since the state takeover ended in 2009.  Despite his passionate and eloquent rhetoric, Smith has continued – even deepened – the harmful policies put in place during the state takeover. He has maintained Ward’s Results Based Budgeting and, like Ward, has used RBB to target veteran teachers.  Now, in April 2012 Smith, who participated in the ill-conceived break-up of the three high schools while at BAYCES, announces that the position of classroom teacher will be abolished at Castlemont, Fremont, and McClymonds, where now all teachers will be “teachers on special assignment” and the small schools replaced by “Acceleration High Schools”.  The reconsolidation was as ill-conceived and as poorly designed as the breakup had been: the libraries remained closed; custodial, food service and clerical staffing remained inadequate; support services were scarce; overall the schools remained terribly resource-starved.  The elimination of the classroom teacher position was a transparent excuse for violating the due process and seniority provisions by forcing all teachers at the three high schools to reapply for their jobs every year.

School size isn’t the primary determinant of success. BAYCES breakup of the comprehensive high schools a decade ago was destructive. Smith’s reconsolidation has been destructive too. And Smith has gone a step beyond to overt union busting, by forcing teachers at these three schools to reapply for their jobs every year.

Indeed, Smith has trampled on virtually every hope he raised in his smooth but false talk of three years ago:

·      Neighborhood schools? Smith closed several, including five elementary schools last June (scaling to adjust for the difference in size between Chicago and Oakland public school enrollments, those five closures alone would be equivalent to the 54 schools Rahm Emanuel et al plan to close). When a group of parents, teachers, and community staged a 17-day sit-in at Lakeview Elementary to protest the closure of the five schools, Smith sent in the cops to evict us.

·      Wraparound services? Two years ago Smith gutted Adult Education – from 25,000 students when he arrived in 2009, the program now has been all but wiped out. He made cuts to Early Childhood Education. He eliminated counselors at the district’s largest high school. Etc. Those few services he did introduce were partial, and based on soft money from his friends and patrons in the corporate foundations.

·      Combating racism? All of the schools Smith closed last year were majority minority enrollment – four black, one Latino. Many of the schools in the black and Latino communities that remain open have become more segregated under Smith.

·      Recruiting, rewarding, and retaining good teachers? Establishing collaborative relations? Oakland teachers have been without a contract since 2008, and are paid 20% below the state and county averages for public school teachers.  In 2010, when negotiations broke down over Smith’s demand that the teachers union accept no pay increase, larger class size, weakened seniority and academic freedom, Smith imposed his terms on the union – the first Superintendent in OUSD history to do so. Union-busting then in 2010, just as he did two years later by forcing the Castlemont, Fremont, and McClymonds teachers to reapply for their jobs.

·      Providing the resources teachers need to teach and students need to learn? Several Oakland elementary schools were chosen by the state to receive supplementary funding for class size reduction, resources, and support under the Quality Education Improvement Act (QEIA) funding, a program aimed at helping the state’s lowest-achieving schools. For the past two years, OUSD has lost millions in QEIA funding because all but one or two of the QEIA-eligible schools failed to meet class size targets – clearly not a problem of poor site administrators, but rather of an inept and unsupportive district administration.

·      Cracking down on mismanagement, excess administrative overhead, and needless outsourcing?  Relative to its size, OUSD under Smith has double the administrative overhead and double the outsourced contracts compared to the average California school district.

Last year, Tony Smith said he wouldn’t care if all Oakland schools were charter schools. Oakland already had the state’s highest percentage of students enrolled in charter schools, and that percentage has increased under Smith (from about 17% to about 20%).

And when Tony enters the game, be prepared to ante up. Although Oakland teachers have not had a raise in five years and are among the lowest paid in the Bay Area, Smith demanded and got a 6% increase over his predecessor’s salary when he signed on as superintendent in 2009. Smith earns a base salary of $265,000 / year. His total annual compensation, including benefits, comes to more than $352,000.

A thread runs through Tony Smith’s career: to attempt to counterpose, in practice, what he asserts to be the interests of students and community to those of teachers and staff. This aligns him with the corporate agenda. And, in fact, he is one of their rising superstars: witness the "philanthropic" funding to OUSD, cited in Smith's resignation letter and in the school board's accompanying statement. (This goes back at least to his BAYCES days [1997 - 2004], where he managed BAYCES connections with the Hewlett Foundation.). But smooth though his tongue may be, Tony Smith’s divide and conquer strategy was beginning to backfire on him in Oakland -- witness the widespread, if passive, support from the community for the sit-in at Lakeview Elementary, or the increasing heat he has been taking at board meetings from community in west and east Oakland.

So while Smith’s family health issues may well be real, I have to believe that he was looking to get out of town. And I have to believe that his corporate patrons want him in Chicago, where they think he’ll be able to win the community back to their side and break the teacher – community alliance. Prove them wrong.

(Originally posted on the Chicago education resistance website, substancenews.net)

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