California teachers unions strike over social issues while students get left behind

What if I offered you a retroactive 10% pay raise covering this year, a $5,000 signing bonus, and a 22% pay raise starting next year?

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

It’s not enough for the Oakland Education Association, the teachers union in Oakland, California, however. In addition to extremely generous financial concessions, the OEA is also demanding “common good” goals be included in the union contract, including measures on climate change, shared governance with the school board, and reparations for black students.

“They’ve been telling us all week they couldn’t negotiate common good, and last night, we broke through,” OEA President Ismael Armendariz said after three days of the teachers' strike. “They told us they could bargain a memorandum of understanding.”