Newark, NJ October 20 — Before the dust could even settle from the Chicago teachers’ strike, national union boss Randi Weingarten and Newark Teachers’ Union (NTU) boss Joe Del Grosso were quick to sell out the education workers and students here in Newark. The contract, which took over two years to work out, will give the capitalists and their puppets (like Superintendent Cami Anderson) easier access to implement their fascist rule.
While there are members of the teachers’ union organizing a “no” vote against the contract, the ruling class is putting their soldiers in line to make sure it goes through. Two of the biggest provisions of the contract are the two-tier wage system and the “Election to Work” agreements that teachers in closed schools are forced to sign to keep their jobs.
Two-Tier Wage System
The biggest part of the contract that has drawn outrage from union members is the two-tier wage system. This scale caps teachers at lower wages. It also refuses to recognize the difference between teachers with a BA, MA, and PhD, thus making the argument that additional certifications have no impact on how well they teach. Teachers can earn “bonuses” for being rated highly effective.
The union continues to push this merit scale. This will create a division among workers by putting them on two different scales and giving out a limited amount of bonuses to particular teachers. However, as we have seen in areas like Baltimore and other places, after this merit pay system is implemented the number of teachers rated highly effective will definitely drop.
Many teachers at the contract presentation voiced these concerns, something that the union leadership completely ignores. One of the main goals of the ruling class is to lower the cost of education as it prepares for wider, larger wars in the future.
Turnaround Schools and ‘Election to Work
Agreement’
One of the most unsettling aspects of the new contract is the union’s willingness to allow the Superintendent to close down 30 schools in the next three years. That is almost 50% of the Newark schools! When confronted with opposition to allow these closings, Del Grosso said, “Well, she can close as many as she wants, we are limiting her.”
Even more troubling than the complete cooperation of the union leadership in closing schools is the “Election to work” agreement that teachers in these schools will be forced to sign if they want to keep a job. Any teacher slated for one of these “turnaround” schools will have to sign an agreement that will override many of the rights that union members have fought for in the past. According to the contract, “the limit on the number of subject or content areas that a teacher may be assigned to teach shall not apply…The limit on the number of classes, consecutive assignments, preparation periods, and room assignments…shall not apply.” This is what the bosses would like the rest of the schools to be like.
Clearly this hurts both teachers and students. These schools, which are very similar to charter schools, can work a teacher for two or three years until they are burnt out and leave the education system. This can give the bosses greater control over teachers since many will not stay long enough to get tenure (which will be a thing of the past as well). They will be so busy keeping their heads above water that they won’t be able to organize and fight back even if they wanted to. It will save the ruling class millions in workers’ wages by having teachers stay for only a few years rather than making it a lifetime career.
Racist Attack on Students
In a school system that is 96% black and Latino, Newark’s reforms are more similar than different to the ones in Chicago, New York and other cities. Students suffer because most of these teachers will not have as much room to fight for student rights.
Teachers will not be as effective because of the different content areas that they are responsible for as opposed to becoming more proficient in particular subject areas. And the community of the school will lose out because of the increased turnover of teachers. This makes perfect sense for the ruling class, which does not care about ”educating” these students to understand the world, but simply to teach students obedience and basic skills to work menial jobs.
Preparing for fascism
and war
As the U.S. ruling class prepares to fight larger, more intense wars against its rivals, education will become increasingly important. The disciplining of the future working class to accept low wage jobs or unemployment as well as to give their lives in the bosses’ wars will depend heavily on the teachers’ reduced ability to fight back as exemplified by this contract.
This will also save the bosses millions of dollars in wages, giving them more wiggle room to spend money in other areas on the war front (reindustrialization for producing war materials and overseas spending) and allow capitalists to accumulate profits.
Contract Shows Need to Fight For Communism
This struggle has opened up the door for a student-teacher-parent alliance. Many parents have been passing out flyers to teachers urging them to vote no. Discussions in the school have become much more political as well. In one elementary school two workers were talking about the implications of the contract. One worker organizing against the contract spoke to a group of workers on the need to organize for communist revolution in the long term while fighting against the contract now. Some of the teachers were skeptical.
As the days went by and more information came out about that contract, one of the teachers put a note in the comrades’ mailbox at school saying, “You’re right, we do need a revolution.”
While it may be jumping the gun to believe that workers can be won to the overthrow of capitalism in a week, this shows that workers are more open to our politics. Those that argue for limiting our fight to reforming capitalism are starting to see the limits.
In the 1960s and 70s many courageous teachers in Newark fought hard and went to jail for the reforms that other teachers enjoyed. Now that the struggle has died down, the bosses have been working overtime to take these reforms away. This is not just happening in Newark but worldwide. The only way to guarantee that workers control their future and create schools that will allow students to reach their fullest potential is through the building of communism. Therefore, we will continue to work with teachers, students, and parents to fight the bosses’ attack, expose the class nature of capitalism, and link this to the need for a communist revolution. There is no other choice.