Hey CTA, Let's make this the year we fight back!

When it comes to the political fights, CTA has a well-oiled machine for getting a candidate elected or filling the radio with sound bites. But for the purposes of winning a state budget fight, our Union tends to leave its biggest tool in the box. During the last three big state budget battles, CTA hasn’t used its most powerful potential resource, a loud and righteously angry membership base that stretches to every corner of the state.

That's why we're losing. But we don't have to be. It's clear that any effort to shake the state legislature out of its standard operating procedure will require a year-long campaign that builds from the ground up. CTA may be the only organization that's big enough and organized enough to get the job done. We just have to change the way we do business.

Here’s the deal. We know already that the next budget battle could be as ugly as the last three. CTA has stepped aside and allowed devastating cuts to schools and vital services without much of a fight. Without real reform in the state government, further cuts are inevitable. Why can’t we insist that our “friends” in the legislature hold out for a budget with progressive revenues or elimination of the two-thirds mandates? Why can't the majority be as stubborn as the "no-taxes-on-our-rich-friends" crowd that has held the state hostage since the passage of Prop. 13?

Our locals know how to fight their own contract fights, and CTA staff up and down the state know how to guide its members in those local fights. What if we just take that know-how and energy, and apply it to the state budget fight? None of our locals are going to have a lot of success with their own contracts until we win real reform on the state level. So what are we waiting for?

Here’s what it might look like if CTA fought a year-long fight on the budget by organizing its most important tool -- its grassroots base:

September/October/December: Member education and public education, network building and local legislative relationships. Local chapters, with the guidance of CTA organizers, use site meetings to get buy-in from their members for a year-long effort, host house parties and public forums to educate the community on how the cuts have hurt schools in the immediate community. Highlight some progressive tax reforms that could be made in California. Prepare a handy education video. Invite local newspapers, bloggers, radio personalities, legislators and their staff to attend. Make the case to people in the local community. End each of the sessions by plugging community members into the fight. Letter-writing, phone calls, all the fixings. Get commitments from people to join the fight. These steps help locals build a capacity to fight and recruit leaders and allies.

November/December/January: Pressure building. Turn up the volume. Statewide media and targeted local media. Local fights around the state should intensify here. Insist on a sit-down with the local Assemblymember or Senator. Create a presence at town hall meetings hosted by state legislators. Picket at local offices of targeted legislators (any Republican who might budge or Democrat who might cave). Firm up message. Focus on “No more Cuts” and “Real Reform” messages (shorthand for raise taxes on corporations and get rid of two-thirds mandates). Highlight impact of cuts on students and services. Keep up pressure on targeted legislators until they make a public commitment to the campaign. Then trumpet that legislator as a “Friend of the Schools” and move campaign onto the next targeted legislator.

February/March/April/May: Lobby day actions focus on “No More Cuts” and “Real Reform.” Local rallies at legislative offices. Radio and newspaper ads continue in targeted communities, then culminate in regional and statewide actions. The impact of these actions is made more effective by the strength of all of the local actions. Make sure that each local keeps its members engaged even into summer vacation. Encourage legislators who have committed to "No More Cuts" and "Real Reform" message to hold out until something gives.

For the last three major budget fights, CTA’s members have been waiting for a real place to get involved. The people of California are desperately waiting for someone to step up and fight on behalf of the majority – in favor of a government that works. Let’s not miss another opportunity.

Vote No on the Deja Vu Budget!

Just like in the Matrix, if you get a sense of déjà vu, you’re in real trouble.  Legislative leaders, along with the blessings of the governor and CTA, are trying to push together another “compromise” budget, which does nothing but guts our schools and state services.

Please contact your legislator before tomorrow and ask her/him to vote no.  Thankfully, the California Federation of Teachers has a link that will allow you to send the message to your legislators.

The new budget doesn’t appropriately fund critical state services and doesn’t fix the long-term structural problems in the state government.  In fact, it digs a deeper hole for the future.

Any discussion of the $7.5 billion we could gain each year if we change Prop. 13?  No.  Any discussion of oil severance taxes?  No.  But the oil companies do get to drill off shore. Any deal on the two-thirds requirements for the budget and new-taxes? No.  Vehicle License Fee?  You guessed it… no discussion. Where’s the compromise in this compromise?

The irony is that the republicans might torpedo the deal because it cuts too much… from prisons!

 

Steve Miller, a high school science teacher in Oakland for 25 years and long-time building rep. for OEA, highlighted the corporate tax breaks written into the budget deal:

“So what was accomplished? If you are a corporation, you are rubbing your hands with glee.

“1) Secret negotiations in February now permit these special breaks: Corporations can choose to be taxed on ANY ONE of these categories: property, sales or payroll. Not all three – they get to pick one. Remember Prop 13 has left corporate property valued at close to the 1978 level.

“Then corporations that have maxed out their tax credits can share them with a family of corporations. This means you set up a phony corporation to fail and give them some of your tax credits, so you can get some more. Lastly, corporations can claim tax refunds early on taxes they have already paid.

“The banner headlines are not going to present these little details, but you can read them in the Oakland Tribune, July 11, 2009.

“2)  Negotiations last Fall put in place a series of upfront and backdoor loans to corporations in exchange for some early revenue.

“A)  The first gimmick suspends corporate ability to carry forward net operating losses to offset future profits for two years. Sounds good, doesn’t it? What a deal this was! Corporations could take today’s losses and use them to reduce future expected profits. Good that it was eliminated.

“Except now corporations can carry back losses against past profits and claim tax refunds from prior years. According to Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee (Oakland Tribune, October 6, 2008), this deal will produce about a billion dollars a year during the suspension, but means the state will be paying back a half a billion a year forever – “another extremely high=interest loan from business to the state”.

“B)  Gimmick #2 allows a second corporate tax break: Businesses received in the past certain income tax credits to encourage certain kinds of investment. These will be suspended for a couple of years, producing about $600 million a year in revenue for the state. Then It allows corporations to transfer those unused tax credits to affiliated companies in the future. This will produce revenue losses in the future that will be many times the mere 3%+ of the budget deficit this fixes.

“State Treasurer, Bill Lockyear, had this to say about that, “This giveaway makes the budget a massive corporate boondoggle that does nothing to fix our structural debt, and, in fact, will make it substantially worse.”

“Schemes like these mean that corporations will pay less and less. It is already pretty bad. In 2001, profitable corporations, over half the state’s profitable corporations paid only the $800 fee to register their corporations’ existence in the state. Those were the good old days!

“California already subsidizes corporations in a wide variety of ways. There is no budget crisis at all even if these giveaways were simply cut in the same proportion with social services. Once again, the budget does not impose a severance tax on extracting petroleum (though it does open the door to the highly unpopular off-shore drilling near Vandenberg Air Force base near Santa Barbara). The state’s water is provided to agribusiness at something like 1/400 the cost that consumers pay. Insurance companies that control the state’s health care pay zero income tax. The state’s constantly growing system of jails subsidizes all sorts of business, while giving the state the highest rate of incarceration in the world.”

So, once again, we have to watch as local school boards are forced to shred our schools, knowing that county governments, senior care and health care services are getting cut even more dramatically. 

In addition to all the corporate give-aways, we also know that there is money out there...  ACLU's current research has shown that there's $12 billion savings available from over-incarceration, $7.5 Billion available each year if we fix the Prop. 13 corporate loophole, potential income from oil severance, vehicle license fee, and billions of other potential revenue if corporations are simply asked to pay a fair share.

I'm caught up with the realization that, again, CTA barely put up a fuss.  And, the democrats were partners in the deal.  How do we get our Union to fight back?  How do we get our "progressive" state legislators to act on behalf of the majority of people in the state?

 

CTA: Turn up the LOCAL Heat on the State Budget

It’s been great to see CTA stepping into the fight on California’s budget.  With 9,000 teachers marching to the Governor’s office in San Diego, or joining our sister Unions in the series of rallies on Wednesday at the Governor’s five regional offices, there is finally something to cheer about.  CTA’s website is also becoming a little more user-friendly for writing a letter to the governor and state legislators about the state budget.

Of course, news from Sacramento is still deeply disturbing.  If the only question is whether or not to suspend Prop. 98, we’re still going to lose.  Status quo keeps us behind.  For the future of California schools, we have to lend our voices to efforts to close the Prop. 13 loophole, end the two-thirds budget approval mandates, and build a progressive tax system.  Ultimately, we won’t win the state budget fight unless we bring it home into our local communities.  Legislators need to feel the heat from the people who will work to re-elect or un-elect them.  

This is the time of year when our local CTA activists are planning their Union activities.  We all know the strategies that work when we fight our districts for our contracts.  We use these strategies because they work, so we should use the same strategies for fighting our legislators that we use when we’re fighting for fair contracts.  Here are a few grassroots strategies that CTA locals can use to have an impact in the budget fight:

1. Letter writing/ Phone campaigns (Very Easy): Use leadership meetings and site meetings to write letters to legislative leaders and local media.  Start with a sample letter and addresses.  Then encourage each of your leaders to repeat that activity at their school sites.

2. Picket/protest/lobbying meeting at your legislators’ offices (A little more planning): Host a picket/protest at your legislator’s home office.  Democratic legislators should be encouraged to harden their stance on the need for more revenue.  GOP legislators should be cajoled into giving up their “no-new-taxes” pledge.  Invite the local newspaper, radio station, TV station or blogger.

3. “State Budget Crisis” forum (More planning… but really effective): Invite teachers, parents, media, community leaders and legislative staff.  Find a few teachers for the “panel” to talk about how budget cuts have already hurt “our” school and “our” community.  Make the case that more budget cuts will hurt more.  End the meeting by recruiting audience members to get involved with ongoing campaigns coordinated by CTA, the California Labor Federation, Close the Prop. 13 Loophole, and your local Union efforts.

4. House Parties:  Find members to invite neighborhood folks into their homes.  Share local stories about how the cuts have hurt our students so far.  Show CTA commercials and UTLA radio spots.  Raise money that can be used to air these ads in cities with targeted legislators.

Ultimately, the fight has to be fought at home.  The only way that legislators will move is when they feel the heat from their local community members.  But our locally fought efforts will be more productive if they are coordinated by a strong state organization. 

Take Action Now: Close the Proposition 13 Loophole!

Finally.  Someone is taking on Proposition 13.  Led by San Francisco Assessor Phil Ting, a new organization called “Close the Loophole” packed the house with more than 100 activists for its first organizing meeting in San Francisco last night.

The Close the Loophole campaign seeks to change Prop. 13 so that corporate land owners are forced to pay their fair share in taxes for the first time in 31 years.  The idea is to split the property tax roll so that grandma next door isn’t taxed out of her house.  But land owned by old monster corporations who never sell and never die will be reassessed so that they are forced to pay taxes at a level which is fair in 2009 dollars. 

It has almost become monotonous to talk about the impact of California’s budget crisis, but the devastation of our social programs has already begun.  The Split Roll change would raise at least an additional $7.5 Billion every year for California public services, which is a step in the right direction.

Many important Unions were there, including CNA, AFSCME and SEIU.  There were also a lot of community organizations.  And while there were a number of teachers in the crowd, California Teachers Association was notably missing. 

While teachers and students across the state are sweating out yet another devastating budget, CTA is still waiting to jump into the fight.  The good news is that there are a lot of allies who recognize the need to change California’s unfair tax policies, and they’re already doing the groundwork.  All CTA and its local leaders have to do is get on board.

Like all historic movements, it looks like this one has to start at the grass roots.  So, local Union activists, go to www.closetheloophole.com, and sign up.  Get the word out to the members in your local.  Facebookers can get recruit their friends by becoming a fan at www.facebook.com/ClosetheLoophole.  Then, encourage your CTA staffers, board members and state council representatives to take up this fight on a statewide level!

Many of you remember how powerful CTA was when working with the Alliance for a Better California to stop the Governor’s attacks on public services.  If so, you can imagine the incredible impact that we could have with a coordinated statewide effort to plug our members into this campaign.  It’s the right fight, and with 27,000 RIFs looming, it’s time to jump in.  

Fight the Big Fight, CTA

You and I pay our taxes dutifully whether we have a good year or bad year, but California corporations only pay meaningful taxes (more than the minimal franchise tax) if they show a profit. And it only takes a few accounting tricks to erase a profit. Angry? Me, too. Now, let’s organize.

With estimates of this year’s budget deficit soaring to $24 Billion, state legislators are already shredding every bit of human decency and good government that is left in the state budget. California needs a fair tax policy and a new budget process. CTA is the organization that must lead the fight.

We can almost repeat like a mantra the things that are wrong with California’s political process: two-thirds budget requirement --  two-thirds local property tax approval requirement, Prop. 13, and no taxes on internet sales --  all wound up in an impossible constitution. The truth is that CTA can’t defend public education unless we fight for fair taxes and a fair budget process in California.

Of course, the anti-tax crowd is big and powerful. Beyond the Republicans in the legislature and the Howard Jarvis people who brought us Prop. 13, California corporations have been benefiting from our broken budget process and maligned tax policies for years, and won’t give up their legalized thievery willingly.  San Francisco Assessor Phil Ting wrote that the property tax contributions from corporations have declined steadily and dramatically since Prop. 13 was passed.   Meanwhile, the California Budget Project shows that both corporate income tax collections and the state sales tax collections have been steadily declining.

CTA might be the only statewide organization that has a strong enough core of local activists and staff in every community to take on these anti-taxers. With the strength of this grassroots base added to its powerful media and lobbying machine, CTA can move a political agenda like no other organization in the State -- if the fight strikes a chord with members.

The good news is that we have the moral high ground here. How can a state with so much accumulated wealth fail to provide quality education, health care, housing and transportation to all of its people? But we have to act fast to solidify our base of supportive legislators, then go on the attack and expose every indecent loophole and dysfunctional mandate in California’s budget process. One thing that is clear, there are a lot of outraged CTA members who are willing to fight this fight in their local communities. That is the most important asset we have.

Our state does not have to be broken. The fundamental fight on California’s tax policy is more important to teachers in California than any policy-wonk assessment-and-curriculum discussions being heard by any legislative committee.

For the sake or our schools, as well as our transportation systems, hospitals, senior care networks and the well being of our environment, the people of California need CTA to lead a fair tax and good government fight.