So I went to the Portland Public Schools board meeting tonight, and sat through such things as interim superintendent Ed Schmitt singing praises of all the corporate advertising swag Nike is unloading on our kindergarteners, and human resources big dog Richard Clarke sprinkling his PowerPoint presentation with big-dog words like “systematize”, “preliminarily”, “dialoguing” and “evaluative”. It was Ruth Adkins’ first board meeting, so that was exciting, but the most interesting thing came at the end of the meeting, during the public comment session.

Teacher contract negotiations always get a lot of press, but not so for the skilled blue-collar tradesmen and craftsmen that literally keep our schools running. A dozen members of the District Council of Unions—steam fitters, carpenters, electricians and plumbers—came to plead their case to the board. They spoke movingly about their plight, a plight you will not read about in the Oregonian, the Tribune, the Willamette Week or the Mercury.

Having worked without a contract for over three years, these guys have reached an impasse with the district, which is refusing even a cost of living raise. That’s an effective pay cut over those three years. Final offers were exchanged and rejected on both sides, and a cooling-off period expired in early June.

It’s clear from their testimony that they like their jobs (even though staffing has been cut so severely that the district no longer does preventive maintenance and they’ve basically been doing nothing but emergency repairs for years), and they don’t want to go on strike. But they’re out of options, hence the direct appeal to the school board. Hopefully the board has learned from the debacle of outsourcing custodians, and will lean on their labor relations team to throw these highly-trained, dedicated guys a bone.

They actually seemed to have some support on the board, and I would encourage everybody who gives a rip about working people and the often appalling physical condition of our schools to contact the members of the school board and encourage them to deal with the DCU, offer a stinkin’ cost of living raise, and avert a strike. Considering all the money the district blew buying off Steve Goldschmidt, I don’t think this is too much to ask.

Contact information for the board can be found here.

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Today is a good day to reflect on all the good tidings brought to us by the labor movement. The eight-hour work day. The weekend. Child labor laws.

We should also reflect on the fact that in much of the world, workers do not enjoy these benefits. And let’s not forget that workers’ rights in the US have been under siege over the last few decades, with serious erosion of the right to organize in the work place, as well as in pay and benefits. We work longer hours for less pay than we did 30 years ago, and job security is non-existent.

The gap between obscene salaries paid to CEOs and regular workers just keeps getting wider, and is mirrored by the gap between take-home pay and bills most of us are accustomed to.

So consider this, working people of the world: We are the vast majority of humanity. The wealthiest two percent of the world, the idle rich, cannot control things without our consent (witting or subconscious). The power is ours, but only if we gather our voices in solidarity and cry “ENOUGH!”

Here’s a little history lesson from the IWW on this International Workers’ Day 2007. Have a great day, but take a moment to remember the people who died so that you can enjoy your weekend, send your kids to school instead of the factory, and be home in time for supper.

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