What you need to know about the Oakland teacher strike

The Oakland, California, teachers union announced that after months of working without a contract under deplorable conditions, 88% of the Oakland Education Association’s membership voted to authorize a strike for unfair labor practices. Beginning on May 4, teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, therapists, and substitutes began picketing, demanding that Oakland Unified School District leaders get serious about doing their jobs at the bargaining table.

The union is now in its second week of a work stoppage. While Oakland is generally considered a liberal city, the privatization connected to public schools that made up so much of the past two decades of poor politics has come to a head. One of the major issues under negotiation is salary increases. Out of the 22 largest school districts in California, Ed Source ranks Oakland teachers’ actual pay at No. 20. Of the 55 districts that file pay data in the San Francisco/East Bay area, Oakland ranks No. 54.

But there are other things besides salaries being negotiated, and school district and anti-labor forces have been putting out very misleading statements about the negotiations.

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