Update on Senate Bill 955
SB 955 was "introduced" on April 14 by Sen Huff (R) and sponsored by the Governor. It was set for hearing in the Senate Education Committee for April 21, the day of our March onto the Capitol, one week after introduction. SB 955 is a component of the attacks on teachers that the Governor proposed in his January budget proposal. In essence it removes all due process protections for teachers in layoff situations and dismissals. This is an attempt to severally weaken teacher unions as we know them in California. While similar attacks have been introduced by the Governor and Sen. Huff on classified employees (year after year) in terms of contracting out, no Democrats to date have supported such an anti-union proposal.
However, Sen. Romero (D), a candidate for State Superintendent, has taken up the advocacy for the bill and has claimed that it is the answer to closing the achievement gap and it is the only avenue to address the civil rights of minority students in California. She held a press conference with the governor on April 20 at Markham Middle School in Watts. Markham is named in an ACLU lawsuit regarding constitutional issues of providing a quality education to all students. Sen. Romero claims this lawsuit calls for the elimination of seniority for all purposes of working conditions including layoff and transfer rights. She stated in the Sen. Ed Comm. hearing that the legislature must address these issues before the courts do, and the legislators should not put off their duty to fix this issue.
However, the ACLU has stated clearly that its' suit is addressed at a LAUSD policy regarding the placement of new teachers and not with seniority rights as specified in the Education Code. It also is directed at the severe budget cuts in the LAUSD. In short, the lawsuit is based on 3 schools in Los Angeles that had more than 50% of their teachers laid off last year. One of the schools laid off more than 72% of the staff. The three schools service low economic and high minority areas of the district. The ACLU complaint is that certain students are not given equal access to education. CFT does not dispute the claims of the ACLU; however, we do dispute the way that Senator Romero distorts the ACLU lawsuit and that it is the teachers or the current laws that caused this situation. In fact, the district decides to implement layoffs, the Governor requested and signed billions of dollars of cuts to education, and we can only negotiate the effects of layoffs. And specifically in LA, there is a court order that the union is arguing, gave the district a lot of authority to fill those schools with teachers that have various experiential backgrounds. The district simply dropped the ball.
Sen. Romero is the chair of Sen. Education Committee and, as was made clear at the press conference the day before the committee met and by her vote in committee; she supports this bill to eliminate the rights of teachers. The committee is made up of 6 Dems and 3 Reps; therefore, if all three Reps are present, then two Dems need to vote for the bill to pass out of committee. Sen. Romero was one of those votes, Sen. Alquist from the Silicon Valley area was the other. We should thank Senators Hancock, Simitian, Liu, and Price for their No vote and their support for teachers even though they had pressure from some "community leaders" to go along with the bill.
As of now, there are some minor amendments that everyone is waiting for and then it is to go to the full floor. We are attempting to work some legislative "magic" to stop it in other ways so that we do not have to have a floor fight. We need the help of your members in contacting their senators and demanding a NO vote on SB 955. Kill it now before it spreads. .
There are 14 Reps, 1 of whom (Maldonado) may be gone by the time it gets to the floor;
This leaves 7 Dems that must vote for it (if you ignore the one that might leave).
o 2 Dems have voted for it in ed committee - Romero and Alquist
o We may still have time to convince Alquist to vote no, but no promise
o This leaves 5 other dems that need vote for it
o There may be 7 dems that are soft (no names until we find out directly what their intentions are).
There is currently one vacancy, so we need commitments from the 23 Dems (this does not count Romero or Alquist) that they will vote NO. Both Senator Steinberg and Assemblyman Perez have stated their opposition to the bill, so that is a good sign.
