Another California strike. What’s the difference?

Mike Antonucci outlines the difference between the Oakland and recent Los Angeles strikes.  The Oakland strike, while approved by a majority of union members there, will not take place for at least another week while both sides await a fact-finding report.

The major issue is pay in the Oakland strike, whereas the UTLA strike focused on class size.  Oakland Unified district continues to repay a million-dollar loan from a takeover from 2003-2009.

When you have 32,000 teachers on strike in the nation’s second-largest school district — and a media capital at that — it will draw massive attention. Oakland will also draw attention, but much of it as a byproduct of the Los Angeles teacher strike and the red state walkouts of 2018.

With 3,000 active members, OEA is less than one-tenth the size of United Teachers Los Angeles, and it’s not even the largest teacher union in the Bay Area. We can expect a greatly diminished media presence relative to L.A.