A-Infos (en) US, NAF* Firebrand #3 - Progressive Coalition Sweeps LA Teachers' Union Election By Joel Jordan

United Action Campaign Coordinator, United
Teachers - Los Angeles
   A coalition of militant, reform-minded teacher union-
ists swept March 2 local elections for the United
Teachers-Los Angeles (UTLA/AFT)-the nation's second-
largest teachers' union local. The election marked the
first time in UTLA's 35-year history that the incumbent
officers were turned out of office, in large part due to
their unwillingness to mobilize the membership to win a
contract over the last 20 months.
   The United Action slate-headed up by candidates
Joshua Pechthalt for UTLA/AFT vice president; Julie
Washington, elementary vice president; David Goldberg,
treasurer; and several other candidates it endorsed-won
every contested seat, giving the coalition a sizable
majority on the union's 49-member board of directors.
   A.J. Duffy, endorsed by United Action for UTLA
president, beat the incumbent
president, John Perez, 60 per-
cent to 40 percent.
   The new leadership will
take office July 1. Reformers
will then have the opportunity
to make good on their promis-
es of organizing and mobiliz-
ing rank-and-file teachers and
building alliances with other
school workers and parents to
take on issues in the school
district.
   Some of the key issues
include class-size reduction,
salary increases, maintenance
of health benefits, teacher par-
ticipation in curriculum plan-
ning and implementation, and
a sharp reduction in standardized testing.

                      Behind the Victory

   United Action took the union by storm, waging an
intense, multi-faceted campaign.
   In September, it formed core groups in seven of the
eight geographically-based UTLA Areas. These began to
seek out endorsements and support, especially from
chapter chairs, the shop stewards of UTLA.
   United Action developed a clear, detailed platform,
and then in its literature focused on a few of the key
issues affecting teachers in the district.
   Through aggressive fundraising, United Action raised
almost $35,000, making it possible to mail out a "United
Action Voters Guide" to the union's 42,000 members, as
well as to get flyers into most of the 600-plus schools in
the district.
   Hundreds of volunteers made phone calls to chapter
chairs and members to get out the vote. As a result, turn-
out increased by more than 1,000 over the previous elec-
tion.
   The victory would not have been possible were it not
for the emergence of a rank-and-file caucus-Progressive
Educators for Action (PEAC). Over the past two years,
PEAC both pushed UTLA's reluctant leadership to take
action and criticized the leadership for its timidity and
excessive reliance on elected school board members.
                  Leading from the Ranks
   Through its presence in many of the UTLA Areas
(where chapter chairs meet monthly to discuss union
issues and vote on policy),
PEAC was able to convince
the Areas to organize several
demonstrations around work-
ing conditions. Teachers ral-
lied around issues such as
excessive testing, paperwork,
and class size.
   All where issues that the old
leadership initially opposed,
but then reluctantly supported.
That PEAC could lead such
initiatives from the ranks put
PEAC in the position of acting
as the alternative leadership of
UTLA.
   But PEAC was not ready to
make a bid for the union presi-
dency. It had not yet devel-
oped a sufficient base of leaders and activists to run a
full slate and win, much less give adequate support to
such a slate once in office.
   So PEAC decided to forge United Action-a broader
coalition and slate including several well-known and
respected teachers who shared many of PEAC's goals
but were less comfortable with PEAC's organizing per-
spective.
   In the same vein, United Action endorsed several
other opposition candidates, including A.J. Duffy for
president, who agreed with important elements of United
Action's platform.
   The mutual endorsements between United Action and
Duffy helped both to win. Just as important, they set the
stage for a closer working relationship between Duffy,
PEAC leaders, and other elements of the United Action
slate, who have already begun to form a "kitchen cabi-
net" based on mutual respect for what each brings to the
table.
                        Base Building
   United Action and its allies take office at a critical
time for public education and for the labor movement.
Standardization of the curriculum has been accompanied
by increased harassment of teachers and pressure on stu-
dents to pass an ever mounting array of standardized
tests.
   Yet UTLA, as well as the state and national affiliates
of the National Education Association and the American
Federation of Teachers, have done little but lobby for
relief from state and federal testing policies. United
Action will have to literally start from scratch in build-
ing an alternative.
   To fulfill its promises, the new leadership will have to
find a way to expand the base of UTLA activists.
Despite the 10 percent increase in the vote, only 27 per-
cent of UTLA's members voted in the election.
   The obvious place to begin is to rebuild the UTLA
chapters at every school, most of which have died or
atrophied because no strategy had been in place to ener-
gize them. To do this, the new leadership will have to
recruit and train as many members as possible in bot-
tom-up organizing methods and strategies.
================================
   Rank and File Rebellion in the
              LA Teachers Union
   A discussion with the rank and
  file teachers who took over their
local union to fight for issue's the
old guard in the United Teachers,
   Los Angeles would not address.
          6 pm Sunday May 8th
               616 East Burnside
                  The IWW Hall
     Sponsored by Solidarity and
                      Firebrand
=======================
NOTE FROM US LABOR AGAINST THE WAR:

  US Labor Against the War (USLAW) is sponsoring a
national US tour by Iraqi labor leaders from three of the
most important labor organizations in Iraq. Portland labor
leaders are working to bring members of the tour to
Portland. This is not an "anti-war" event. Our goal is to
hear from Iraqi union leaders about their experiences and
needs, and based on that information, determine what
U.S. unions can do to support Iraqi workers and unions in
rebuilding a strong,, pro-worker economy.
  This tour will provide the first opportunity for the labor
movement, working people, the general public and the
media in the US to hear directly from courageous Iraqi
trade unionists who struggled for years under Hussein's
repression and now have stepped forward to organize
workers under the difficult circumstances of violence and
occupation.
   The six-member delegation coming to the US will
include Abdullah Muhsin, International Representative of
the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions; Falah Alwan,
President, Federation of Workers' Council and Unions in
Iraq and Hassan Juma'a Awad
______________________________________________
    We are asking unions to do three things:
             1) Endorse the Iraqi tour.
2) Contribute to the costs of the Portland por-
tion of the tour (we need to cover a portion of
   airfare, hotel/food while in Portland, and
  need to produce information promoting the
                          tour).
 3) (Most importantly!) Promote the tour and
  help turnout your members, particularly to
     an evening event that will take place in
                        Portland.
---------------------------------------------

  For a more comprehensive understanding of U.S. eco-
nomic plans for Iraqi, and the impact of those plans on
Iraqis, I suggest an article by Naomi Klein, from Harpers:
www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html
Here is some background taken from several articles
(including Klein's):
  Iraq's contemporary labor movement was founded dur-
ing the 1920s and played a crucial role in overthrowing
the British-supported monarchy in 1958. The nation's
unions never coexisted very easily with the Ba'ath move-
ment. So, when the Ba'ath wrestled control of the state in
the coup of 1963, they systematically set out to eliminate
the unions. When Saddam finally consolidated political
control of the country in 1979, he immediately stepped up
the persecution of dissidents in the General Federation of
Trade Unions (GFTU), Iraq's most powerful union, intim-
idating and torturing workers. In 1987, Saddam effective-
ly banned trade unions in the public sector, where the
majority of people worked. In response, organized labor
went underground.
  So, many laborites were elated in March 2003 when the
U.S. rolled into Iraq to overthrow Saddam. But from the
time the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) took pos-
session of Iraq, the Americans running the country not
only declined to engage the labor movement in the
process of building a nation, but also worked actively to
undermine labor's ability to play a constructive role.
  During his tenure, CPA chief L. Paul Bremer repealed
virtually the whole Iraqi legal structure. He did not, how-
ever, repeal Saddam's 1987 Labor Code, which forfeited
the right of public sector workers to bargain collectively.
Obviously, he saw labor unions as a barrier to other eco-
nomic plans that included the firing of 500,000 state
workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses,
teachers, printer, etc., and attempts to privatize virtually
the whole economy- 200 state-owned firms. The Ministry
of Industry has estimated that another 145,000 workers
would have to be fired to make the firms desirable to
investors- in a country that now has 70 percent unemploy-
ment.
  Many of these displaced workers became the insurgency,
or held back CPA economic plans by threatening to join
the insurgency. The oil workers union made such a threat
when they were told their demands for better wages would
not be met (after being told they would fall under Order
30 which cut benefits such as food subsidies and lowered
wages from $60/month to $40/month).
  Bremer's economic plan also included Order 37, which
lowered Iraq's corporate tax rate from roughly 40 percent
to a flat 15 percent, Order 39, which allowed foreign com-
panies to own 100 percent to a flat 15 percent, Order 39,
which allowed foreign companies to own 100 percent to
Iraqi assets outside of the natural resource sector, and to
take 100 companies to sign leases and contracts that
would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign
banks to Iraq under the same terms. In addition, the coun-
try was opened to unrestricted imports - no tariffs; duties;
or inspections required.
    The U.S. government further signaled its attitude
towards Iraqi labor unions in early December 2003 when
coalition troops stormed the IFTU headquarters in
Baghdad, ransacked their offices, arrested eight union
workers, and shut down the office. Within a day, the
arrested were released uncharged from Al Muthan airbase,
but IFTU headquarters remained shut for seven months.
The jailed men accused the United States of relying on
information provided by a member of Saddam's old
regime, Abdullah Murad Ghny, who owns a major private
transport company whose workers had begun to organize.
  The U. S. has also excluded Iraq's state owned factories
from reconstruction contracts, instead giving lucrative
contracts to Western companies. For example, there are
seventeen state-owned cement factories across the coun-
try but most are idle. The CPA has paid up to $1,000 per
imported blast wall built by forcing contractors; local
manufacturers say they could make them for $100.

----------------------------------
* Firebrand is a publication of the Firebrand Collective,
a member collective of the Northwest Anarchist Federation
(NAF).
FIREBRAND - A VOICE FOR PORTLANDS RANK AND FILE WORKERS
ISSUE 3 Spring/Summer 2005 Federation)

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