File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0102, message 41


Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 02:50:07 -0500
From: neil <74742.1651-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: AUT: The  LAUSD Contract--Better Read the Small Print!


Please read  through all  the lawyerese, the small print and the Aesopian
language in this Contract ! You will find that this contract is  NOT really
what  it's cranked up to be by the Union, the District bosses, Dmopublican
politicians and the Corporate Media, etc.

Remember, we got no raise last year so these pay increases are more like 
increases for 2 years length , not 1 year! And also the contract is for 3
YEARS so as the economic  recession hits , the Politicos will tell us we 
have to tighten our belts again next year because tax rates will  now be
cut for the "business community" ,i.e. our rich rulers mainly,  and that
the "money' is not there". This is what they did in the early 90s when we
got smacked with 13%+ worth of pays cuts for  4 years. And of course now 
as the  California Energy Corporations are getting Billions in corporate
welfare from our California  State budget surplus to bail them out and keep
wealthy  stockholders happy, etc, the surplus  funds will probably be gone
by next year! Then whats next? 

So the pay increases  are really  achieved at a huge price. Now we will
also  have official two-tier systems for pay, bilingual  stipends, and
class selection. This is very divisive and will pit member against  member.
Just what the Corporate money bags and their Demopublicans want!

This contract  has essentially many of the same givebacks the District
proposed months ago. But with the big workers community support we got to
reduce class sizes and achieve other gains for teachers and students, there
should have been a decent class size cut gained at the least. But this was
not done and now with school construction proceeding  in at best, a
helter-skelter way  and with LAUSD getting 15,000 more students per year on
average, class sizes  are going to  skyrocket further in grades K, and
4-12!  For many teachers this raise may be more than offset by increased
workloads.

Other issues which are big setbacks are that the CLAD differentials were
not restored. Co-payments for health benefits remain, and no due process
mechanism  will exist for counselors. But the District/bosses get part of
what they want now  in abolishing  teachers selecting their  co-ordinators 
at so-called "low performing schools." Thus the union here  gives in to the
scapegoating of  teachers, etc, for underfunded, inadequately  prepared &
overcrowded schools and the results of standardized testing alone!. 

The Contract  will  be sold by the UTLA  Union apparatus , the  Corporate
Media, the Demopublicans,  Superintendent/exGov. Romer , Mayor Riordan ,
his  School Board , and other guardians of  capitals' 'bottom line' as
another 'great victory' for us. Yes, another 'great victory',  like
Napoleon's at  Waterloo! The Union apparatus never  really  prepared for a
strike organizationally-politically . That is why they never even held any
mass substitute meetings and  pre-strike deadline mass  job actions as
happened before the 1989 strike. Hhmmmmm.

Don't we need to get ourselves organized to deal with the present public
schools crisis and growing social crisis as well? Don't we need NEW
organizations built  from below that encompass  us as a real fighting 
collective,  building unity and struggle of the exploited in the
communities where we teach/educate , etc. Why should the rich , our
capitalist rulers be allowed to run roughshod over the schools and our
students lives, 
and then when their Corporations go belly-up, they want to hand us the
(Energy) bill and rip-off billions needed for our schools, other human
services, etc. Is it not time to get organized politically/industrially to
wage class war?  After all that is really what the bosses' are doing to us
every day!            Feb. 6, 2001
Internationalist Notes-LAWV, Box 57483, Los Angeles, CA 90057  Internet:
www.ibrp.org
              







 


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