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 --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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