Spanish Version

A little more than a month from the great strike of West Virginia, the teachers of the state of Oklahoma held a strike for salaries’ rise and an increase of the school financing in the State (reduced a 30% in the last decade) which prolonged for ten days. It is estimated that forty thousand workers took participation in the strike and there were massive mobilizations directed to the state Capitol.

In difference from the West Virginia strike, which conquered a 5% rise, this struggle was dismounted unilaterally by the bureaucracy of the National Education Association and the Oklahoma Education Association without achieving any of its goals. The call from this bureaucracy was the starting kick which gave place to the state government to force teachers to go back to their working places, sanctioning those who wouldn’t do that (WSWS, 4/19).

The orientation of this bureaucracy, which plays a role of contention and demobilization in every conflict, is of settling the conflict “in the poll boxes” during the midterm elections of November, voting the Democrat Party. They hide the degradation of teachers’ salaries and the educational collapse has among its responsible parts the former Obama administration and the governors.

The recent conflict of West Virginia has spread to the teachers of numerous states which are waging a battle against the scarce educational budget and the misery salaries, which in multiple cases lead them to take a second job to cancel debts. In Kentucky there was also a strike and protests in Colorado. In Arizona, the teachers developed three days of protests that will preceed a strike next Thursday 26^th.