Tent To The Ively

 At three in the morning on what was essentially the last day of negotiations before the Oakland Education Association went on strike, a tentative agreement was reached. The rank and file, myself included, breathed a sigh of relief. Yet another in a series of battles for the right to provide education to the public school students of Oakland was won. 

"Won." 

With all the asterisks that come with a beast we call "tentative." Signing on to be a part of this machine, showing up every day and providing services to the community that stretch far beyond my job description provides me the security that can be best described as "tentative." The Oakland Unified School District is not sending a car for me each and every morning to drive me to the work I do, and my salary is determined primarily as an operation of things for which I have no active impact on with the possible exception of simply showing up. Every single day. 

I will be receiving an eleven percent raise, over the course of two years. I won't probably see the whole thing since I have plans to retire before those two years are up. But it's a nice bit of news as I head off into the sunset. 

It tends to displace a bit of the trauma experienced by the announcement just a couple days before the "tentative" agreement that the district will be laying off four hundred twenty-one people in order to close the one hundred million dollar budget deficit they find themselves with. Noting that none of the positions eliminated were School Board officials. One hundred forty-four additional positions will have their hours cut. 

To save money.

To give me a raise.

This comes somewhere in the midst of an additional flurry to get as many folks in the district to retire early. I don't claim to be an expert at labor relations, but something about all of this leaves me feeling like I'm running to stand still. 

And maybe the best part of this whole transaction is that I will most likely avoid walking a picket line one more time before I actually do stand still. 

Tentatively.