Victory for Tacoma teachers

AFTER 10 days on the picket line in defiance of judge's order, Tacoma teachers fended off a pay cut and attacks on the union's seniority protections to win a contract that bucks the concessionary trend in teachers' union settlements across the U.S.

The teachers, members of the Tacoma Education Association (TEA), voted September 22 by a margin of 98.9 percent to ratify the tentative agreement with Tacoma Public Schools (TPS) and return to work.

The agreement was reached a day earlier after union and TPS negotiators met for hours in the state capital of Olympia, with Gov. Christine Gregoire mediating.

If Gregoire felt pressure to intervene, it's in part because of the widespread community and labor support for the strike. Members of other unions, such as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, United Food and Commercial Workers and Washington Federation of State Employees were present at picket lines in support as well. National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel recorded a message of support for Tacoma teachers.

As Fred Garnsey, a fourth grade teacher at Arlington Elementary, said:

NEA is the largest union in the United States, and as such is in the forefront [facing] attacks to eliminate collective bargaining and free up corporate administrations to do whatever they want, whether it be to hire and fire without any justification. This is a microcosm of what's happening nationwide in different states.

The TEA came up with creating ways of publicizing the struggle, including a website called WeTeachTacoma.org. Comments on the website from people supporting the strike came in not only from Tacoma and the surrounding area, but as far away as Wisconsin and Indiana.

The TEA also distributed a regular flyer to picketers called On the Line, which informed strikers of new developments and picket location changes, while providing talking points for union members. A group of teachers organized a group that cycled from picket to picket, earning a rousing cheer at each location.

Protests were critical to the struggle as well. After voting by 93 percent on September 14 to defy a judge's back-to-work order, thousands of teachers and students rallied the following day, completely encircling the school district's Central Administration Building.

Support for the strike was strong throughout. Students organized a Facebook group to back their teachers and rallied at the Tacoma Dome to support teachers when they voted to defy the court order. Hundreds of students chanted, "Teacher Power" and formed a gauntlet of high fives for teachers to walk through.

THE TACOMA teachers' strike shows that it's possible to stand up against school districts and corporate reform groups' attempts to shred due process and balance budgets on our backs.

"We haven't gone on strike in 33 years," said TEA President Andy Coons. "We didn't go into this lightly. We have a very high strike threshold--80 percent of the entire membership, not just those that turn out for the meeting. It's unified us. We realize the power of the worker, and that when something is not right, we can stand up, and we can make it right."

The TEA and the school district disagreed primarily over removing seniority from displacement and transfers of teachers, as well as disputes over pay and class size.

Under the agreement that union members approved, seniority protection will remain in place for the first year of the three-year agreement, during which time the district and the union will form a joint committee to explore new criteria for the displacement process.

Initially, TPS sought to cut teachers' pay, even though the district has $45 million in reserves. Despite a state cut of 1.9 percent to teacher pay, the union avoided a cut to the salary schedule, losing only one building optional development day. The TEA also protected existing class size limits and strengthened contract language on class size caps for elementary schools.

The district played hardball from the get-go, hiring an outside negotiator, Washington Employers, at a rate of $1,500 a session. On its website, Washington Employers describes its services: "We provide a full range of collective bargaining services for member employers with unionized employees, as well as for nonunion employers facing union organizing efforts...[including preparing] a strike readiness plan and assisting in maximizing the employer's ability to withstand a strike with minimal interruption of operation."

TPS also used robo-calls to get its claims about bargaining out to teachers and the community--many teachers were outraged by what they felt were outright lies about the district and union proposals. The TEA routinely tried to set the record straight at WeTeachTacoma.org.

The school district was being lobbied to make drastic changes in seniority by a group called the Vibrant Schools Tacoma Coalition (VSTC). On its website and elsewhere, VSTC lays out its claims focus without any supporting facts. For example, in a letter to the Tacoma News Tribune on behalf of Vibrant Schools, the authors claim that 80 percent of Tacoma voters support a teachers contract that guts seniority protections.

Vibrant Schools, which formed in late April, is a coalition of various local organizations, including the Tacoma chapter of Stand for Children and the Gates Foundation-funded League of Education Voters, both corporate-style "education reform" organizations.

According to the Seattle Education blog, which is affiliated with the group Parents Across America Seattle, the domain name for the Vibrant Schools website was registered to someone from Strategies 360/DMA.

Strategies 360 is a marketing firm used last year in Seattle by another Gates-funded group, the Alliance for Education, to conduct a "push-poll"--a supposedly neutral opinion poll designed to "push" respondents toward a particular position--that advocated performance-based pay for teachers, the anti-union Teach for America program and an end to seniority protections for teachers. The firm then used the push-poll to set up an Astroturf group in Seattle, called the Our Schools Coalition, to support corporate school reform.

Meanwhile, Vibrant Schools also hired an outside firm, EMC Research, to conduct surveys in Tacoma upon which most of its positions are based, though it is unclear how the supposed "grassroots" coalition paid for the polling.

DESPITE THE pressure from the school district and VSTC, union members' resolve only increased.

It's clear that the district intends to continue its efforts to undermine the union. For example, according to a letter from TEA President Coons to the Tacoma School Board and district superintendent, school officials are violating the amnesty agreement in the contract by withholding all but two days' pay during the strike from teachers' October paychecks.

But TEA members say their struggle didn't end when they voted to approve the contract. In a speech to the association after ratification, Coons quoted Margaret Mead: "Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals."

Teachers feel they won an important victory, even though the fight to defend seniority rights will continue. Teacher Fred Garnsey reflected the overwhelming sentiment among TEA members after the approval of the contract:

There has to be some flexibility, but there also has to be some safeguards. There needs to be due process for teachers so that they have the opportunity to be mentored, to improve and at least know why and not be fired for no-cause. Classroom teachers do an awful lot, but they can't do it all. Just having a teacher in every classroom is not enough. We need support personnel and resources to meet the needs of our students.

TEA members will have to keep their passion alive to ensure that the joint committee on displacement doesn't succumb to pressure to erode seniority further and keep the district to its word.