Vision and Values Matter

Dear Education Austin sisters and brothers,

Just another reminder to vote to reelect Bruce Banner as Vice President of Classified Employees of Education Austin. You'll need to closely follow the instructions in the mail ballot and have your ballot postmarked by this Friday, May 23rd.

Vision and values matter. The vision and values that I have followed for the past 8 years have been of equality and justice for our Classified members in particular and all union members generally. These principles motivated my demands for equitable pay raises between Classified and Certified employees when I first started attending AISD budget councils in the mid-90s. These principles motivated my fight for Just Cause employment status for Classified employees and an end to at-will employment in AISD. These principles informed my proposals in Consultation and the grievances I've fought for both Classified and Certified members. Equality and justice have been my guiding stars through the dark night of Teacher and Public School employee unionism in Texas. They have served me well.

But through my tenure as Education Austin's Vice President for Classified Employees, I began to see the outlines of a more profound vision for our union's future, a vision based on the idea of expanding and deepening democracy in both the school and worksite but also in the union local as well. Part of this vision includes union local officers who are democratically accountable and responsible to our elected Executive Board, who in turn are accountable and responsible to our members and leaders at the campus and worksite level. This vision includes using relational organizing to grow our democracy by helping potential members become members, who then are encouraged to become active members, then leaders, and finally dedicated unionists. This vision incorporates equality and justice as foundational values that guide our democratic practice.

Why workplace and union democracy? Because the alternative is, in the best case scenario, a benign dictatorship, and it goes downhill from there. And that, I submit, should be unacceptable to thinking, feeling and free women and men.

This vision sees labor unity and solidarity as fundamental to our creating democracy and power for all members. "An injury to one is an injury to all" is not just a nice slogan. Benjamin Franklin said it best at the signing of the Declaration of Independence when he said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." To me this means, "Solidarity forever -- or else!"

This vision esteems the old union aphorism of "Agitate, Educate, Organize!" Agitation simply means getting people to see there is a problem. That's why agitators are often seen as troublemakers when we just identify problems, like the boy in the fable who pointed out that the emperor has no clothes. Education means working the problem or the search for solutions. Organizing is implementing the solution to see if it works, or going back to the drawing board if it doesn't.

So this is the vision and these are the values that have animated my unionism and work for the past 8 years. But how does this translate to actual policy? Here are issues that I will pursue if reelected as your Vice President for Classified Employees:

• Continued agitation, consultation and struggle to win Just Cause employment status for all Classified employees and ending at-will employment once and for all.
• Pumping more money into both Teacher/Certified and Classified pay schedules to catch up with higher paying Texas school districts and to help recruit, reward and retain faculty and staff, while paying real Living Wages to our Classified Educational Support Professionals.
• Use of "no confidence" votes and campus/worksite organizing to hold administrators and supervisors accountable to their faculty and staffs, an initiative that I began 4 years ago.
• Development of a "unified indexed step schedule," with no more than 10 to 12 steps, for all employees' compensation, both Certified and Classified, and with "anniversary or seniority pay" to make the pay system fair for both new hires and veteran employees.
• Training of members and leaders in labor history so that we can all understand how we're fighting battles today in Texas that were won 40 years ago in other states, as well as to help our relational organizing in the district.

I will vigorously pursue these and similar initiatives, as well as the good ideas that you as members and leaders bring to your elected Executive Board and officers. For this vision for Education Austin's future, I again ask for your vote and support to reelect Bruce Banner as Education Austin's Vice President for Classified Employees.

Thank you again for your vote, your support and your membership in Education Austin.

In solidarity forever,
Bruce Banner
Vice President for Classified Employees
Education Austin
NEA/TSTA, AFT/Texas AFT, AFL-CIO

"A union is a way of getting things done together that you can't get done alone." Utah Phillips

P.S. The Hulkophiles amongst you can still check out the movie website and trailer here or at http://incrediblehulk.marvel.com. You can also can also check out my campaign blog at http://reelectbrucebanner.blogspot.com.