Sacramento teachers launch historic statewide bargaining effort

By Sheri Williams

The Sacramento City Teachers Association kicked off bargaining in early February with a historic announcement: The union is banding together with teachers in 31 other districts across the state to launch a joint effort to push for higher pay and benefits, smaller class sizes, and mental health support and other resources for students.

“It’s unacceptable that in the ‘Golden State,’ with its vast wealth and resources, our communities struggle with fully staffing our neighborhood schools,” said David Goldberg, President of the California Teachers Association. “This is why educators are coordinating to take a stand statewide. Together with parents, students and our communities, we demand that districts prioritize resources for our students and ensure California leads the country in providing a quality public education for every student.”

Saying “we can’t wait” for Washington to get its act together and unwilling to wait any longer for the schools students deserve, the unions decided to coordinate their contract bargaining on common issues. Nikki Milevsky, president of the Sacramento City Teachers’ Association, said that since the Sacramento union successfully settled a strike two years ago, the district has changed for the better.

“After a successful strike in the election of the new school board, our district decided to go in a different direction, and it has been like night and day,” she said during a press conference to announce the joint effort. “We have made significant progress towards our priorities and our vision for our district. The conflict has been replaced with cooperation, and these negotiations are an opportunity to establish a foundation to make Sac City Unified the destination district in California.”

The unprecedented We Can’t Wait campaign involves 77,000 educators across the state who teach and serve one million students. In the coming weeks, educators will approach their local school districts with the shared priorities of the campaign, the union said.

This is possible because many of the local unions have been able to align their contract expiration dates to expire in June 2025 and have all come together around a set of shared demands.

“I’ve seen numerous SCTA pickets and rallies and strikes over the years, and I’ve seen firsthand the fights that SCTA has won with a collective bargaining agreement that is setting standards for educators across California,” said SCLC head Fabrizio Sasso. “We expect that progress to continue in these negotiations … so on behalf of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, we’re here to say we stand in solidarity with our educators. We will fight and we will win.”

Also on hand for the Sacramento kickoff was Princess Moss, the national vice president of the National Education Association and a Virginia music teacher.

“With all of this momentum, I was delighted to be here for the first day of negotiations,” Moss said. “But I’m also here because this year’s bargain represents a chance to make history—to make history, my friends. Today, SCTA is united with over 30 CTA locals across the state to negotiate collective bargaining agreements, contracts that will be able to set the standard for education throughout California and actually across the entire nation. SCTA is known for blazing a trail for other education unions to follow. I am here to let them know that they are not blazing that trail alone. Their statewide campaign is filled with the power and the support of a union that stands three million members strong.”

Speaking at a statewide campaign launch, Sylvia Allegretto, Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), said that part of the reason that school districts are having difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers is a widening pay gap between educators and other professionals with similar educational backgrounds.

According to Allegretto and a new report from CEPR, California Teacher Pay: Decades of Falling Behind, over the last four and a half decades, the average weekly wage of teachers in California increased by 26.3 percent, while those of non-teacher college graduates rose by 70 percent. When the high cost of living in California isn’t considered, teacher wages have been flat since 2003.

It’s not just wages for educators.

Although the fifth largest economy in the world, California ranks in the bottom half of states for per-student funding. California also ranks 48th in the nation for student access to school counselors and is in the bottom five states for ratios of students to teachers, student support service professionals and librarians.

A report, The State of California’s Public Schools, conducted by GBAO Strategies for the California Teachers Association and released last month, found that four out of 10 educators surveyed are thinking about leaving the profession because they’re not getting the support they need in school and can’t make ends meet at home. A full 84% of the teachers surveyed cannot afford to live near their schools, while 81% percent say their salaries are not keeping up with rising costs for groceries, childcare and other necessary expenses.

“Our students deserve class sizes and staffing levels that allow them to thrive and feel safe at school,” said Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, President of the Oakland Education Association and a parent of school-age children. “They also need to know that they aren’t going to have that support taken from them due to layoffs and school closures.”

Despite a statewide teacher shortage, school districts across the state sent 2,000 layoff notices to educators in 2024.

“Local chapters have been preparing for this campaign for a couple years to align contract expiration dates and discuss shared demands statewide. We are organizing internally and mobilizing externally with the support of parents and community groups,” said Kyle Weinberg, President of San Diego Education Association. “Why? Because we can’t wait for adequate school staffing. We can’t wait for our schools to have sufficient resources. We can’t wait for schools to be safe and stable. California’s students deserve better.”

The We Can’t Wait campaign launched February 4 with actions led by local educator unions across the state.