Teaching us about the success of labor solidarity

Heading into this Labor Day weekend our entire community has been given a great gift by the teachers of the La Conner Education Association and, inadvertently, by the La Conner school district board of directors and administration. These teachers have shown through their actions the meanings of the phrases “solidarity forever” and the refrain “for the union makes us strong.”

The 100 percent unity of teachers, the support of their spouses and children and the involvement of their neighbors and friends is heart warming and stirring. Sunday over 75 members of this village all but camped out for 12 hours on the lawn of the district’s administration building. They came with tents, camp chairs, corn hole, skates, scooters, bikes, chalk, grills, food and drink. Probably not even the history teachers with them knew it, but they mimicked, in textbook fashion, the great Flint sit-down strikes of the 1930s that created the United Auto Workers.

It was this incredible solidarity of workers, family and community that forced General Motors – the Apple Corporation of its day – to the bargaining table and a contract.

Monday local history was made when nearly 150 teachers and their community filled the school district’s boardroom and presented the indisputable facts of their position to the school board. More powerful were the seven teacher testimonials. These were also long on the facts: Names of teachers who had left for better pay, cars with 273,000 miles, calculations of reduced retirement income.

But it was their heartfelt, ethics driven statements, not asking but telling the school board that were worth more, that respect was their due, that the board needed to show it valued them that carried the most weight.

This teachers’ project, a summer term group effort, almost seems like a challenge dreamed up by the school board to test their staff’s mettle. The La Conner school teachers have been given a great gift by the school board. Better than any reality TV show, this game has been won by cooperation, courage and commitment – just like historic union struggles.

La Conner’s teachers, individually and together, have learned a great deal, and the least of it has been facts and figures and negotiating techniques. They had a righteous cause and they met the challenge of standing up for themselves and supporting each other.

They are better for their efforts. I bet they are changed. I bet they are better connected, permanently, among themselves. I predict this will change some lives.

The school board has forged from the fire of contention a teacher corps that believes in themselves, each other and their cause. These teachers took their teachable moment and ran with it. They – and the school district – is better off for their having met the challenge of solidarity.

And, Monday afternoon the school board and administration had the game turned on them. They were challenged to meet their responsibilities, to show respect, value the worth of their employees as human beings and bite the bullet of having to concede. The gift has moved to them: It is their opportunity to lead with respectful responsibility.

It is indeed a time for them to “Be Brave together,” as Superintendent Whitney Meissner wrote earlier.

Three hours of negotiations Tuesday and both sides came to an agreement. Teachers will be smiling more broadly than students in the schools on Wednesday. So will administrators.

And then the Labor Day weekend for all of us to reflect on the worth of workers, past and present.