Bay Area teacher strikes highlight growing labor tensions

OAKLAND, Calif. - Teachers have been walking off the job or threatening strikes during tense contract negotiations from San Francisco to the East Bay. Experts say these disputes are part of a larger trend in the Bay Area and tied to rising living costs and resource issues.

Teachers in Richmond went on strike for the first time ever in December of last year, asking for a pay raise and improved healthcare.

In February, thousands of San Francisco teachers led a historic four-day strike for the first time in nearly 50 years. The deal included higher pay, improved benefits, and special education resources.

Weeks later, Oakland teachers narrowly avoided a strike after reaching an agreement that granted more than 10 percent raises over two years.

On Monday, for the first time ever, Dublin teachers kicked off a strike after contract negotiations failed.

Rising Costs and Staffing Challenges Drive Strikes

The California Teachers Association says the recent strikes reflect years of frustration among educators.

"We are seeing them now, because after decades and decades of disinvestment in public education and in educators, people have had enough, frankly. People are just struggling to survive, struggling to put food on the table, struggling to buy a house anywhere near where they work or even rent," said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association.

The union says teachers across the state are watching one another closely during negotiations.

"They've been learning from each other, being excited to see how their sisters and brothers in other districts are actually fighting back," he said.

The independent research center Policy Analysis for California Education, or PACE, affiliated with Stanford and other universities, said California is experiencing a structural problem that has left districts in tough financial positions.

"That means that districts are kind of in tough shape, because from a revenue perspective, there's declining enrollment and in some cases, chronic absence issues. So, the per-student revenue has gone up, but total revenue may not have so and this was exacerbated as a result of the ending the COVID relief funding," said Lupita Alcala, executive director of PACE.

Alcala also said some district contributions have increased in a way that doesn't increase salaries, including pension contributions, health care costs, which have doubled in the last decade, and rising special education costs.

"There's an affordability issue definitely happening in the Bay Area, where the housing is driving away teachers and therefore, the kids," she said. "But also this is a global phenomenon, we're just not having as many kids, and so I think we've been seeing it more steadily, but now it's starting to affect the sizes of our districts and the sizes of our schools."

Districts receive state funding based on daily attendance.

Lee Adler teaches public sector labor law at Cornell University.

"What's happening is the incredible tension that individual teachers and their families are feeling economically in this situation, as well as their job being continually messed with standards and and you have to prove this, and you have to teach that," he said. "And then they see people just like them that are surviving by going on strikes. They say, we can do this too."

Just days ago, a school district in the Sacramento area went on strike, and another is set for Tuesday. Teachers in Los Angeles have also authorized a potential strike, and a solidarity rally is planned for next week.

California is one of a handful of states that legally allows teachers to go on strike.