Los Angeles School Strike Demonstrates Union Focus Is Leftist Politics, Not Education

Commentary

In recent years we have seen that leftist ideology has infiltrated all elements of American society. What started in the universities has now spread to corporations, the military, the criminal justice system, the administrative state, many churches, and our grade schools. Last week’s Los Angeles school strike demonstrated that the spread to our schools has been led, not surprisingly, by teachers unions.

Los Angeles teachers went on strike just before the pandemic in 2019, shutting down the entire L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest in the country, for six school days. The LAUSD educates the city’s lower- and middle-income families. They achieved a six percent raise in teacher pay, among many other concessions.

The Los Angeles teachers union helped shut schools down for far longer during the pandemic. The district first shut down in March 2020. Thanks to union opposition, they did not fully reopen until a year and a half later. Thus, while healthcare workers, grocery store clerks, and flight attendants worked through the pandemic, teachers refused to return to the classroom. When they finally returned, they insisted that children wear masks. In so doing, at least in L.A., teachers forever lost the “hero” title we often bestow upon them.

The head of the union is Cecily Myart-Cruz, a left-wing radical. When Governor Gavin Newsom offered incentives for schools to reopen, she called it “a recipe for propagating structural racism.” She told Los Angeles Magazine that our children will be fine: “Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”

Last week, the unions shut the schools down again with a three-day strike. This time it was not over teacher pay, but over the pay of the LAUSD’s service and staff employees. In most states, teacher strikes are illegal, and for good reason. Just as air traffic controllers cannot legally strike because they would shut down transportation, teachers should not be able to shut down the education of America’s next generation.

In California, teacher strikes are permitted, but not over the pay of other employees. If teachers are free to strike over any issue, there is no telling what issue they may choose to jeopardize our children’s education over.

Just look at the issues the union has championed under the reign of Myart-Cruz: racial justice, Medicare for all, the millionaire tax, financial support for undocumented families, rental and eviction relief, and the plight of the Palestinians. According to Myart-Cruz, “Education is political. People don’t want to say that, but it is.”

The union is seeking funding for a Black Student Achievement Program, building affordable housing for low-income families, environmental justice, and access to ethnic studies. The union calls for equity and revolution on the main page of its website: “Excellent, equitable education starts with educators. Together, we will build an educational system that we believe in. Be part of a revolution in education.”

It makes no sense for teachers to strike over the pay of service and staff employees. If LAUSD gives these other employees more, it may have less to pay the teachers. But when you see it through the political lens of the union, it all makes sense. The union cares more about implementing a progressive agenda than the wellbeing of its own members.

For its leftist leaders, this was all about the workers receiving more “equitable” pay. That means pay that is more equal to that of the teachers. Under socialism, workers are typically supposed to be paid the same regardless of the job.

The ability to shut down schools is incredibly powerful. The teacher strike almost immediately resulted in the workers getting a 30 percent raise! The minimum wage for a school employee is now $22.52 per hour, regardless of whether you are a cook, janitor, or staff assistant. The deal included a retroactive pay increase going back two years! It also included a cash “appreciation bonus” of $1,000 per employee for those who worked during the 2020–2021 school year.

Mayor Karen Bass got credit for serving as a mediator between the union and the school district during the strike. But there was not a lot of mediating to do. The workers had demanded a 30 percent raise, and Bass convinced the school board to give it to them. After all, if you want a political career in L.A., it is best to just give the unions what they want.

Unions allow employees to collude with one another to shut down a business, industry, or school system to extract higher wages. It is illegal for businesses to similarly collude. Unions may have served a purpose prior to the numerous labor laws we have in place today. But today they have devolved into a wing of the Democratic Party. They are no longer focused on employees, but rather on implementing a radical leftist ideology, and they will not let children stand in their way.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.