Re: Strike Date & Makeup Day

Fellow SDEA union educators,

After over 90% of SDEA members voted to authorize a 1-day unfair labor practice strike, SDEA leaders set a strike date: February 26. This date was announced to site reps at Wednesday’s SDEA Rep Council, and to the whole community at a Thursday press conference at Encanto Elementary. As you may have seen, the District reacted to the strike date announcement by announcing that schools will be closed on strike day, but then went a step further to say that the District is declaring a make-up instructional day on March 9. 

By declaring a make-up day on March 9, the District is trampling on union members’ right under the law to bargain over work days. The only legal way to decide whether SDEA members’ will make up the strike day and on what terms is by bargaining with SDEA members to reach a written agreement, which then — because SDEA is a democratic union — must be ratified by union members.

It’s an unfair labor practice for the District to unilaterally add a workday for SDEA members on March 9 — just like it’s an unfair labor practice for the District to continually violate and ignore the District’s special ed. staffing obligations in the union contract. 

SDEA staff, leaders and attorneys are working right now on a legal challenge to this unlawful action. You can read the letter SDEA’s Executive Director sent to SDUSD today to demand the District cease and desist and honor union members’ right to bargain over whether there’ll be a make-up day and on what terms.

The most powerful challenge to this action is using our strength in numbers — by showing up to the Time’s Up rally at the school board on Jan. 27 at 4 pm and getting your school ready to hit the strike line on Feb. 26!

In the coming weeks, there’ll be time and opportunity for SDEA members to weigh in on the question of a make-up day, but here is some information to consider in the meantime.

If the day is made up:

• No loss of instruction or attendance days
• District keeps full annual funding
• Our full annual salary is maintained
• Pension credit is unaffected

If the day is not made up:

• One day of instruction and attendance lost
• District loses one day of state and federal funding
• You may lose one day of pension credit (for example, .99 years instead of 1.0)

Six thousand SDEA educators just shut down the second largest school district in the state of California – that’s our power. The way to make this shutdown meaningful – to create change from it – is for 6000 of us to show out on the strike line on Feb. 26 and put the eyes of the city on our fight to stop the understaffing of special education! 

In Solidarity,

Kyle Weinberg

SDEA President

Today’s press conference at Encanto Elementary, announcing our strike date.