District, union appear to be headed for a collision course

Planned one-day strike by teachers has sides at odds

OAKLAND >> The Oakland Unified School District and the union that represents its teachers and other staff may be headed for a legal battle over the union's planned one-day strike Friday to protest the pending closure of Oakland schools.

After the Oakland Education Association authorized a strike last week, the school district's chief governance officer, Joshua Daniels, sent a letter to union president Keith Brown demanding that the strike be called off. If it isn't, Daniels wrote that the district “may take any action it deems appropriate,” including asking the Public Employment Relations Board to step in and stop the strike.

Brown and other union representatives did not immediately return a request for comment, but a post on the Oakland Education Association's Facebook page Monday morning urged people to attend the strike, with picket lines forming at school campuses starting at 6:30 a.m. and a rally scheduled at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater at 11 a.m.

The strike is “against unfair labor practices regarding school closures,” according to the union's social media post.

In February, Oakland Unified's board of trustees approved a plan to close, merge or shrink 11 schools, citing a looming budget deficit driven in part by declining student enrollment.

That decision has been met with protests, marches and rallies by students, parents, teachers and some other community members, plus a hunger strike at one point by two district employees.

Earlier this month, the ACLU of Northern California filed a complaint with the California Department of Justice asking state Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate the board's plan to close schools. The civil rights organization said the district's plan is racially discriminatory because it will disproportionately impact Black students and families.

At the seven schools the district plans to close by 2023, more than half the students are Black. Across the district, Black children comprise about a fifth of the students.

The district did not conduct a racial equity analysis of the closure plan, as required by its own resolution adopted last year, according to the complaint.

Bonta's press relations team declined to confirm whether the office has opened or will open an investigation into the school closures, citing a need to protect the integrity of any possible probe.

Meanwhile, the teachers union filed its own complaint with the Public Employee Relations Board.

In his letter to the union, Daniels said a strike would be an “unlawful and an unfair labor practice” because it would violate the current bargaining agreement between the district and the union.

“A one-day strike would likely cost the District funding it cannot afford to lose” because its primary source of funding comes from student attendance, Daniels wrote. He noted the agreements the district recently signed with its unions provide bonuses and raises that are already difficult to afford.

“Losing more money due to an illegal strike would make that more difficult and would further impede OUSD's ability to reach the level of competitive compensation that both OUSD and OEA seek,” Daniels said.

Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle that the union considers the strike legal. Daniels' letter had given the union a deadline of noon Monday to indicate whether it still plans to continue with the planned strike, but district spokesman John Sasaki did not say Monday afternoon what the district intends to do or whether it would file a complaint about the strike with the Public Employee Relations Board.