This week, we saw over 250 cafeteria workers walk out of Guilford County schools to protest their unlivable wages and pressure the local government to give them a raise. The walkout lasted two days, and after meeting with district officials, they won a 4% total raise for School Nutrition Services Assistants and a 7% raise for School Nutrition Services Managers.
We saw an outpouring of support from the public — both online and in person. The overwhelming majority of people in Guilford County believe the cafeteria workers deserve more and stood with the workers. Some folks were understandably angry with their low wages, and with the impact the walkout had on kids at lunch time.
Multiple things can be true at the same time and often are. In this moment, these things are true:
1. Cafeteria Workers Deserve a Living Wage
They deserve to make enough to take care of their families’ basic necessities and much more. We all do. Currently, that is not what they have.
2. Worker Organizing Gets the Goods
We celebrate the workers’ win, the courage and organization it took to walk out, and the public support from people all over Guilford County who saw their injustice and agreed that it wasn’t right. It took the workers walking out for them to win the increases that they won. If they hadn’t said enough was enough and walked out, they would have won nothing. Organizing and action gets the goods.
3. School District and County Officials DO Have the Power to Make Some Change
And we must hold them accountable to do the things that are in their power to prioritize workers. The County Commission can raise their wages a little bit by cutting spending in areas some of us might think aren’t so crucial. But their main tools are raising taxes and shuffling money around from other critical and underfunded areas– robbing Peter to pay Paul. The School Board and School District leaders can’t raise any money at all, and their only tools are requesting money from other bodies and moving money around– and yet, a walkout made them exercise the power they do have.
4. The Real Money is in Raleigh and Washington
Our school funding comes from several sources but is mostly funded from our state budget. Even if every local elected official woke up daily thinking about what they can do to fight for poor and working people, the money they control would never be enough to fund the school system we deserve, including pay for staff. We live in a right-wing-controlled state with lawmakers that gave away billions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations instead of fully funding our schools. For example, the general assembly in Raleigh recently passed a law (SB406) that plans to give away public money to private schools across the state. Guilford County Schools stands to lose over $11 million once it goes into effect.
5. The Right Wing Sets Us Up to Fail
There are some extremists in power who want to divide us. Majority left-leaning County Commissions like ours are often under pressure to fill in the gaps left by state funding. Money that should be going to schools is lining corporate pockets, and when workers in counties with left leaning governments rightly demand more money, they target their local officials. When workers organize, those who seek to undermine public schools claim this is evidence that public schools are unruly, failing messes and right-wing legislators continue to starve school budgets while claiming that left-leaning urban leadership can’t run the schools effectively. It’s easy to place the bulk of our frustration on the targets we can hit — especially if they have room to improve — but let’s not fall into the right wing’s trap to divide and conquer us.
6. We Need to Elect Better People in Raleigh and Organize for the Long Term
2024 is around the corner, and while we are all thinking about the federal elections, we have an opportunity to get out the vote to replace the folks in Raleigh who are starving our schools!
Here’s how you can get involved
Attend Our Teach In via Zoom on Monday, Dec 4th from 7:00pm – 8:30 PM
Join a Public School Strong training
Come to Guilford for All’s New Year’s Day Social on January 1st
Volunteer with Us to Get Better People in Raleigh!
Vote for the Candidates we Endorse in 2024!
Join GCAE if you are a GCS employee