We are members of United Educators of San Francisco, organized to empower other rank and file union members, not the bureaucrats and Democratic Party politicians who have dominated the agenda of the labor movement for too long.
We believe that frontline educators know best the curricular and pedagogical needs of their students, and that they should be central to decision making about these issues.
We believe in a transparent, democratic, and activist union that fights for our schools and the communities they serve—one that is capable of organizing diverse forms of collective labor action, including disruptive action like strikes.
Rank and file members should be setting the agenda of our union. Strategic and tactical questions should be deliberated and decided by members at our school sites and assemblies. Officers and bargaining teams must be accountable to the rank and file union members.
We want to go further than standard negotiations around salaries and benefits. This means advancing the struggles of classified workers, educators who serve special education students, educators who serve English learners, and substitutes. It also means expanding contract campaigns to struggle for demands relevant in our communities: good jobs, universal healthcare, defunding the police, and an end to police impunity, deportations, evictions, and racist and sexist assaults. We must use our collective union power to build a broad working-class movement for justice.
A truly humanizing educational system cannot be achieved under a system designed to benefit the wealthy few. We struggle not merely to reform the current system, but to contribute to the development of a working class movement that will overcome capitalism and organize society to meet the needs of the many.