At a time when we are facing unprecedented attacks on public education and unions, I’m grateful to be in a union that gives us all a means by which we can make sense of the world and focus our collective power to meet any issue head on — with solidarity, strategy and with ánimo — soul.

In our union, we make the space to talk to each other and transform concerns into collective action, confusion to clarity, division to unity, despair to hope, and anger to action. We see this in how our locals, our members, are responding to students and communities in fear as ICE raids wreak havoc across our state. Folks are bargaining to protect students and families, working with allies and partners to help, and responding quickly to meet community needs.

We see this in how Sacramento City Teachers Association, for example, organized and built power over the past decade, resulting in a local with the internal and external strength to win solidarity with community, elect educator-friendly school board members and negotiate historic contracts.

I know the anger that many of us feel remains. The truth is that there are more than enough resources in our state alone to fully fund public schools and Special Education and for every educator and student to have access to affordable health care and housing. We must use our anger to fuel the work we do.

It’s okay to be angry when so many of our districts are sitting on massive reserves while we fight layoffs, cuts and closures.

It’s okay to be angry that in the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country too many educators can’t afford to live in the communities they serve.

It’s okay to be angry that public funds are being redirected to scale up ICE raids in our communities. One in five of our students lives with an undocumented family member. We teach in communities where once-vibrant neighborhoods are now quiet. Families, students and union members are harassed, detained and deported — many while following the rules.

And it’s only just begun. That big ugly bill, one of the largest transfers of wealth from working people to the rich and corporations, will supercharge these raids in our communities. Seventy-five billion dollars that was funding health care in poor and rural communities will now be directed to ICE over the next four years.

All nine of the California Republicans in congress voted for this bill. They are cowards who lied to our members when they said they wouldn’t cut funds for health care that their constituents depend on. We must rally our friends, families and communities to vote YES on Prop. 50 on Nov. 4. Prop. 50 defends our democracy and ensures funding for public education and essential services for our communities.

Let’s remember that those who threaten our democracy wouldn’t be coming after us if they weren’t afraid of our collective power. Why else would states like Texas redraw their congressional districts to maintain their majorities in 2026 if they weren’t afraid of a backlash to these draconian cuts? Cuts and extreme policies from the Trump Administration are deeply unpopular and they know it.

With so much coming at us we do need to be flexible and nimble, and we mustn’t despair.

Our union is how we take this chaos and turn it into a plan to win. It’s how we will build a supermajority of chapters with the organizing structures and cultures needed for collective action. Our greatest resistance is building a stronger CTA — chapter by chapter, site by site, and member by member.

We will meet these challenges building our union, growing our skills, being focused and intentional with our power.

Not a single one of us is alone and whatever weight we carry, we carry together.

Onward.

David B. Goldberg
CTA PRESIDENT