Strike Update: You Are Showing Up in Force & We Are Winning. HOLD THE LINE TILL WE BRING IT HOME!
All SEIU 1021 members should report to the picket lines outside their worksite 45 minutes BEFORE the beginning of business Friday, April 1. We will rally at the Serna Center again at 11am.
Because of You, We Are Stronger Than Ever and Have the Community Behind Us
WOW!! What a sea of purple at Serna Center today! As your
bargaining team, we could not be prouder of each and every
member who is making a huge sacrifice to fight for what’s right
for our students, our community, our coworkers, our families, and
ourselves. We know how difficult it is to give up a week’s
pay, and how frustrating it is to have to go to these measures
just to secure a living wage that will allow us to keep working
for the District and recruit enough full-time staff for our
workloads to be sustainable.
The Central Labor Council is offering a food delivery
service for striking workers in need. If you are showing up to
the picket lines and rallies, signing in, and you need assistance
with food, please fill out this
form. Please also see the note below about the Strike
Hardship Fund and our GoFundMe.
Your message is resonating. Your willingness to share
your stories and show your vulnerability as well as your strength
is unbelievably crucial to the outpouring of support we’re seeing
from the community. The
parents who sat in Serna Center overnight demanding Aguilar and
the school board do their jobs has been the top story in
the media all day. We all feel it, even just with the streams of
honks our picket lines get.
The community is behind us. They’re upset schools are
closed, just like us–and just like us, they know who to blame
for it.
We Demand Respect
Today we celebrated the legacy of Cesar Chavez, the labor
leader who fought for dignity and solidarity for farmworkers and
all working people. And we publicly called on Superintendent
Jorge Aguilar, who likes to talk publicly about being the son of
immigrant farmworkers, to honor the values that Cesar Chavez
represented and to stop trying to break his lowest-paid workers
by dragging this strike out by continuing to refuse to value and
respect the work we do.
Tonight in negotiations, when we asked the District if
they would be coming back with counterproposals tonight, told us
at 9:30pm that the people they needed to consult might be in
bed.
Tomorrow is April 1. Rent is due. Many SCUSD classified
staff are worried about how they are going to pay their rent. But
for the District, it’s simply not important enough to make sure
that the decision-makers are at the table ready to settle a fair
contract so that our kids can go back to school and we can go
back to work. 9:30pm is too late for them to be
bothered.
We face so many problems at our schools and worksites. Some
departments are severely short-staffed, creating a huge burden on
the workers who are still there. The District is actually
saving $5.5 million a year by having 400 classified positions
open–and they are just socking those savings away in
reserves. The District currently has $123 million in
unrestricted reserves, receives $20,000 per pupil in funding, and
is promised continued strong funding from the
state. Literally the only thing preventing them from
offering a living wage is poor leadership.
On top of that, the District is engaging in some of the worst
employer practices, making layoffs without negotiating impact
with the union and replacing six-time nutrition service
positions with part-timers who can only get three hours of
work a day–leaving them ineligible for benefits and unable to
provide for their families. They have been making these moves
without negotiating with the union, which is an unfair labor
practice, and we are filing charges against the District with the
Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) for their actions.
Our top priority in negotiating our contract is ensuring
all SCUSD classified staff earn a living wage so that they will
stay with the District and even bring friends and family members
to come work with us to fill the hundreds of vacant
positions.
We understand our members’ eagerness to see specific proposals.
The process of negotiations means that proposals can change very
quickly from day to day or even hour to hour, so to avoid
confusion, we cannot share full
proposals. We thank our members for the trust they
have placed in our bargaining team to negotiate a contract that
addresses our biggest issues and concerns, and ask that you
continue to hold the line as we work day and night to bring this
home and win the best agreement possible for all our
members.
The community is behind us, and we’re
winning. It’s because of each and every one of you
who has showed up to rally at noon, before heading to your second
job. It’s because of each and every one of you who has shared
your story at rallies and to TV cameras. You have helped the
community understand why our jobs are so hard, so special–and so
undervalued.
You deserve more. WE deserve more.
We are making progress because of your fight, and WE WILL
WIN–but we won’t win without each and every one of you. Please
keep showing up on the picket lines, showing up at the
11am rallies, and sharing your stories.
We see you, we hear you, and together, WE WILL
WIN.
A note about the SEIU 1021 Strike Hardship Fund:
We understand that striking is a big sacrifice for our members,
especially those of you who have already been struggling to get
by. Our bargaining team has been working hard throughout the
weekend to get the District to a fair agreement that values and
honors our contributions to Sac City kids’ educations with the
goal of going back to work ASAP with a tentative agreement.
SEIU 1021 has a strike hardship fund that provides $20 per
person, per day, for members who demonstrate financial hardship
as a result of a strike in which they participated. Those funds
can be matched one-to-one by chapter funds up to $50 a day,
meeting certain conditions, for every day after the third day.
The strike fund is not meant to replace wages but to provide some
relief for members in need during a strike.
There will be an application process which we will provide
information on shortly. You MUST show up to the picket lines and
SIGN IN in order to be eligible for the strike fund.
Additionally, one of our local’s allies has set up
a GoFundMe
strike fund for our members who were on the picket
lines. Please share the GoFundMe widely and ask
friends, neighbors, family, and anyone you know who might be able
to chip in to support and share. Every donation helps, even just
$5 or $10 at a time.
We will share more information in the coming days on the process
to apply for hardship funds. In the meantime, please be sure to
show up for your picket line duty and make sure to SIGN IN each
and every time, as the hardship funds will only be available to
members who have been on the picket line and have signed in. To
ensure that the funds go where they are most needed, you will be
asked to show hardship in order to be eligible for the funds as
they become available.
Thank you for holding the line for our students, families, and
all of SCUSD’s hardworking staff. We are winning. The
community is on our side. We are confident that if we keep
holding the line just a bit more and pushing hard, we will reach
an agreement that finally addresses the District’s staffing
crisis and shows us the respect and dignity we deserve.
Click here to send an email to the school board and tell
them that every student deserves a teacher and a fully-staffed
school. Please share this widely and ask your family,
friends, coworkers, and neighbors to send emails as well.
Please share our member strike fund!
Listen to Olivia Minor’s message to Sup. Aguilar today on Telemundo 33 here.
Listen to 3 siblings on strike–2 members of SEIU 1021 and one of SCTA–explain what’s at stake, why they’re holding the line, and how they feel about the support they’ve gotten from the community.