Divya’s E-Board Bulletin Oct-Nov 2023

/ Rank and File Caucus

for a Google doc version of this bulletin, please click here!

Greetings fellow members of OEA!

My name is Divya Farias and I am a special education teacher at Oakland High serving in OEA Executive Board seat 1.  With the help of fellow Rank and File Caucus members, I am sending out monthly bulletins to share with fellow members of OEA.

Please note that all Rep Council (RC) and Executive Board (EB) meetings are open to all members to attend.  I highly encourage you to come! Also note that all EB decisions, as always, are subject to approval by the RC. Below you will find some highlights from the October meeting and a special November 1 meeting. The next EB meeting is Wednesday November 15 at 4:30 on Zoom. 

Highlights from the Oct 18, 2023 and Nov 1, 2023 EB meetings:

NEW BUSINESS

  • The Executive Board unanimously approved a motion of support for the Palestinian liberation struggle 
  • The following donations were approved
    • $2500 to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee dinner (I was the one No)
    • $2500 to the Portland teachers’ strike fund (unanimous)
  • Funds were allocated for the following:
    • $5000 for temp staff/interns to work at the OEA office (I was the one No)
    • $3500 for roof repairs (unanimous)
  • Members were nominated and added to committees…
    • Shannon Walker, Maranatha Hosick-Farwell, Dolores Jeff, DaMonica Robinson, and Jessica Chen were added to the bargaining team (No objections)
    • Committee appointments #5 were made (I abstained)

FINANCES/TREASURY

This could also be considered new business but since there was a lot of information I’m making it a separate section. 

  • The question of whether OEA owes OUSD money was answered.  OEA does indeed owe the district a number near $400K for officer release time reimbursements to OUSD for 22-23, but the leadership’s position is that the district is unfairly charging us for several months of release time for a leader who was supposed to be on an unpaid leave of absence. So, the number is a bit less than $400K but no exact amount was announced. To date the union has not yet paid back the district, but it was stated that the leadership plans to do so as well as determine the amount the district owes the union in dues that are not being properly deducted from members’ paychecks. The leadership stated that they plan to settle up. A timeline was not given.  It was also stated that the audit for the 22-23 school year will not happen til January 2024, as audits happen in January of the next year. 
  • The treasurer’s proposed budget revision was presented and brought for a vote.  I abstained. This information was not yet shared the night before the meeting making it difficult to review. The treasurer noted that one major change in the way the budget looks is that in the revised budget, income and outcome are all on one sheet, whereas the previous treasurer separated grants into a different tab (which means release time was accounted for partially on the main spreadsheet and partially in the grants tab). 
  • The following areas of spending were revised up from the June budget proposal that was voted on:
    • Release time for released officers  
    • Office staff  (emphasized over and over that it’s been a big cost)
    • Member to member trainings
    • Bargaining 
    • Community alliances 
  • The following areas of spending were revised down from the June budget proposal:
  • Grievance
  • Political Action Committee
  • Member Assistance Fund
  • New Teacher Reception

REPORTS

  • Detailed reports were given on bargaining, reminding us that we will begin negotiating Reopeners in the areas below. The bargaining chairs are Vilma Serrano and David McKay. Committees have been appointed in each area and will be preparing to sunshine proposals December 13. 
  • These priorities were highlighted:
    • Multi-year approach 
    • Yearly progress on compensation
    • Membership engagement
  • These are our Reopeners:
    • SpEd – workload
    • Newcomer supports
    • Early elementary TK/K
    • Early Childhood ed
    • Early childhood sped
  • OEA is also a member of the California Alliance for Community Schools, a coalition of urban teacher locals in California (such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, etc).  We have aligned contracts to all expire in 2025 and can expect to work together on statewide discussions and actions. 

MY 2 CENTS 

On the Palestine motion I think it is essential that labor stand against violations of human rights, war crimes, and genocide.  I believe Israel’s siege on Gaza is all of these– and join millions worldwide calling for a ceasefire and liberation for the Palestinian people. I voted yes on this resolution with the understanding that its passage would mean a recommendation of a Yes vote to Rep Council… and then Rep Council would be in a position to engage members at sites before voting to make the resolution union policy.  But there was a misstep prior to the Rep Council meeting on Nov 6; OEA released this statement on Palestine (which is not the same as the resolution that EB voted on) to its membership and publicly on social media.  As you probably know, there has been much contention among members (and some parents as well) with strong opinions both in favor of and against OEA’s position in favor of Palestinian liberation. I think it’s very OK to have a diversity of positions, but when the union executes action independently of the Rep Council, we can run into problems… and we certainly did in this situation. At the November 1 EB meeting, there were extensive comments made by many members of the board expressing the statement should not have been put out without a vote of the reps.  There was also discussion of how we need to do more organizing before taking positions like this.  I agree with this and want to point out that regrettably many of our organizing structures have been dissolved in OEA; we no longer have a Crisis/Contract Action Team nor an Organizing Committee nor a functional cluster system (the president dismissed cluster leads in the summer.) I think that the controversy has given us an important opportunity to look inward at how our procedures and what we can do to maximize member participation and engagement in union policy-making. For the record, the Rep Council did ultimately vote the Palestine resolution into policy on November 6, with 66 yes and 31 no.

I also want to note that the October 18 meeting was held during a “retreat” for Executive Board members where we were released from work to be able to attend.  This means that members could not attend the meeting even if they wanted to, because it was during contract hours and they did not have a release to leave work.  I brought this up well in advance of the meeting to note it was objectionable.  The president said he would take it into account while scheduling.  I’m not sure what was accounted for. 

On the budget revision and OEA’s finances It cannot be understated that the November 1 special meeting felt very rushed. The full budget documents were not provided in advance and motions were made very quickly in the meeting.  Most importantly, we were provided a budget revision that is not side-by-side with the original 23-24 budget, making it very difficult to compare the projections with the revisions and actual spending to date.  At present I have a few main concerns about the budget and though I raised these points, I felt I had to abstain without sufficient time to understand and investigate the answers. My concerns are…

  • Why hasn’t the $400K (or similar amount) been paid, and what is the timeline to pay it?  I did call the president to follow up about this and the answer to why it hasn’t been paid was “I don’t know.”  I also asked what that money might have been spent on since last year’s books have already closed, and the answer was that we won’t really get the details until the audit report comes out in 2024.  The president mentioned that he meets every 2 weeks with the OUSD director of labor relations but the issue of the money owed hasn’t been addressed in those meetings yet, because they have instead prioritized member issues.  
  • Some have also wondered at what point the budget allowed for release time for 4 officers, when the 23-24 June budget only mentions full release for the president and allots money for partial release for the 1st and 2nd VP.  However, I do see that there is a lot of money in the 23-24 budget in the Grants tab that would be going to release time. Since the 23-24 revision has moved away from totaling Grants separately, it’s difficult to compare the June 23-24 budget to the November budget revision.  It does seem possible that the budget for 4 released officers has been there all along.  What I don’t know is how it was decided which officers will be released.  That doesn’t appear to have been via a vote. 
  • We have significantly overspent our budget for clerical office staff because one of our staff members retired (after 33 years!) and another resigned.  We spent more than was allocated for these positions to account for the retirement package and benefits like paying out their sick days.  We are currently without any office staff which I think is a big problem for OEA, and we will need to move funds around as soon as we hire office staff.  I am concerned we are going to spend $5,000 on high school interns to staff the office in the interim.  When I asked when we will hire office staff, I was told we are “in no rush.”  
  • With all that said, and now that I have had the time to read carefully and ask follow-up questions, I would recommend a No vote on any budget revision until/unless we have 1) receipts that the $400K has been paid 2) a plan for hiring office staff and 3) democratic agreement on how many officers should be fully released and what they should do while released.  I regret not having voted No, but also felt I needed proper time to review the documents before voting No (or Yes) and that opportunity was not provided prior to the meeting.  I did not want to vote disingenuously, so I abstained. 

This turned out to be probably more than “2 cents” ! Once again, please reach out – let’s discuss and build the union we want! My email is postmistressgeneral@gmail.com. Once again the next EB meeting is Wed Nov 15 at 4:30 on Zoom. 

In solidarity,

Divya

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