By Ken Epstein

Following a historic one-day strike of teachers and Port workers at the end of April, a coalition of labor and community activists continues to gather steam against the billionaire takeover of public Port of Oakland property and the giveaway of public school property to corporate interests.

Hundreds of longshore worker and school activists in a variety of organizations who participated in the one-day strike on Friday, April 29 are developing plans to build their movement by expanding outreach in the community and increasing pressure on the politicians and billionaires who speak with the authority of big money.

Walter Riley. Photo courtesy of Mr. Riley.

Divya Farias, a special education teacher in Oakland and member of the steering committee of the new coalition, Schools and Labor Against Privatization (S.L.A.P.), says she looks forward to building on the results of the strike.

“It was really successful; we shut all the schools and the Port,” she said. “It was historic to have this united action between teachers, the ILWU, and parents,’’ she added, emphasizing the participation of parents and the “solidarity among different unions that came together at the S.L.A.P. rally against privatization (at City Hall).”

Some activists are hopeful that the Oakland City Council will listen to the outcry from constituents who are demanding that the Council place a measure on the ballot that allows voters to decide whether they want to spend over $1 billion in public money for John Fisher’s new A’s stadium and massive real estate development.

Parents, teachers and school advocates are working with schools that are facing school closures this year and next year to enhance community wide understanding that neighborhood schools, even ones that are not large, are necessary to the survival of working-class Black and Latinx neighborhoods.

Others are focusing on a statewide campaign to pressure political leaders who talk liberal but whose actions instead create a commitment to austerity, the sell-off of public assets and backing the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT), which is a state-funded unaccountable agency that is going around California closing schools and cutting public school funding.

Farias said she saw amazing examples of solidarity in the strike: school workers in AFSCME and SEIU 1021 joined teachers to picket at schools. “Some principals joined teachers on the picket lines, including the president of the administrators’ union.”

“Longshore workers heading to work respected the (community) picket lines (on Friday evening), and for hours we were able to shut down the Port, the economic engine of the Bay Area,” she said.

“It was (also) exciting that parents supported the strike. We really need to grow that solidarity,” Farias said, adding that more and more students are getting involved.

The strength of the movement is the “public alliance between teachers and longshore workers,” she said.

Next steps are to broaden and deepen the movement: “There has to be a greater understanding that the agenda of privatization is the driving force behind the school closures,” she continued.

Farias also emphasized that the fight ahead will not be easy. Though the movement is stronger and has had some victories, she said, “I don’t think school closures are going to go away anytime soon. We’re trying to slow or stop a train that has been on the tracks for a long time now.”

Timothy “Akaamka” Killings, a school employee and S.L.A.P. steering committee member, also viewed the strike as a major step forward for the anti-privatization movement.

“We’ve connected the two struggles: the longshore workers against privatization of the Port of Oakland and the teachers and community against school closures and consolidations,” he said. “In terms of teachers pushing back against the district, and the community being involved in the struggle and being able to get the word out about what’s going on, it’s been a success.”

Killings said there is still much to be done to educate people to understand pro-corporate talking points that are spread by corporate media, that there are too many schools, that the district is broke, that school closures are the way to support higher quality education for Oakland’s under-served students.

Next steps include more outreach and education, actions to get more people involved and finding school board candidates who will fight against school closures to run in the November election, he said.

“The billionaires and the politicians are learning that this is not going to be as easy as they thought it would be. There is going to be a fight,” Killings said.

Civil rights attorney Walter Riley, a community activist and longtime political leader in Oakland, chaired a S.L.A.P. forum on April 30 where local candidates were interviewed about where they stood on school closings and the stadium/real estate project at the Port of Oakland.

“Our job is outreach. I see it as my job to do more outreach, to get greater community participation, to work with people to mobilize to fight these powerful interests that are operating in Oakland,” said Riley.

He said the focus of the candidate forum was to inform the candidates about the positions of the movement and learn from the candidates what they think. “We put them on notice that there is a movement and that we’re organizing.”

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