By Dale Martin & Trudy Stephenson Willis
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not intend it to happen, but he's providing CTA with one of the best organizing devices it's had in years.
CTA has a new generation of members and staff, many of whom have never fought a battle like the one older members waged for collective bargaining, have never been through a strike, have grown up in an anti-union atmosphere, and see CTA as the provider of services rather than an organization in which they play a crucial role.
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Chapter presidents Marcie Launey from Sacramento, Maggie Ellis from Elk Grove and Nancy Waltz from San Juan Unified regale Council members with details about their successful rally in Sacramento during one of the governor's fundraisers.
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But now, said CTA Executive Director Carolyn Doggett in her address at the April meeting of CTA's State Council of Education, they are becoming involved in their union like never before.
"That's why, when I see all the organizing going on throughout the state, I want to give Gov. Schwarzenegger a big thank-you."
At an earlier Council meeting, when President Barbara E. Kerr urged members, "Don't agonize. Organize!" chapters took her words seriously. Up and down the state, they began reaching out to members who are angered and hurt by a governor who they feel is betraying public education and teachers.
In Fontana, for example, members are sending out runners to block the governor's signature-gatherers.
High Desert chapters are organizing at rest stops along Interstate 15, offering travelers water and free coffee along with a message against the governor's agenda.
With just four hours' notice, 250 people — led by retired teachers — showed up to picket an appearance by the governor in Santa Rosa.
Merced-Mariposa chapters are planning more than 100 barbecues to make sure members stay involved over the summer.
On May 11, Day of the Teacher, the Golden Gate Service Center Council hopes to have teachers with picket signs line El Camino Real from San Bruno to Menlo Park.
All these efforts and many more like them will not only help defeat the governor's agenda, says Doggett, but will make CTA all the stronger.
Members in North San Diego County are highly motivated to take action, agrees NEA Director Eugene Fernandes. "They're doing things on their own." One marched inside a local Trader Joe's store and and demanded to know why paid signature-gatherers were being allowed to hound patrons. After all, he said, he was a customer who spent $100 a week there on average. Permission to solicit signatures in front of the store was yanked by the next day.
Other San Diego members, distraught that they can't afford to leave school and join the big rallies in Sacramento and Los Angeles on May 25, are organizing fellow teachers to walk picket lines on busy boulevards in the district that day.
Retired teachers have come out in force to help the effort in San Jose. On one occasion, says East Side Union Teachers Association member Deborah Imerson, 30 of them came forward and volunteered to substitute in an effort to free up active members for duty on the picket lines.
Her members are reaching out to a lot of other groups to find support for their cause and, at the same time, trying to use every avenue open to them to educate people. "A lot of us are upset," says Imerson, a high school sculpture teacher. "Just because we're teachers, we shouldn't have to take a vow of poverty. We want respect, but it looks like we've gonna have to fight for it."
Chuck Patterson, a member of the Sweetwater Education Association, says his members are also up in arms about what the governor is trying to do and clearly understand the threat to public education.
Even though "we're starting to see chinks in the governor's armor that indicate our message is getting out there, we can't back off," says Patterson.
It's got to be more than just rhetoric. "We've got to reinforce our alliances with other groups and, as local leaders, we have to carry the message out to the school sites and talk with folks one-on-one. We have to stimulate folks to ask questions and raise issues."
In the long run, he says, "this is giving us the issue we need to build the future of our organization. This is the Prop. 98 of the modern era. This is the battle our younger members will remember when they're our age."
