The union for the Community College where I teach has declared a strike tomorrow demanding better wages (working with no contract, years of austerity measures that keep our salaries below where they were in 2007, etc).
I need ideas for picket line slogans. So far the best I’ve come up with is LEARNED SAGES DESERVE REAL WAGES, but I’m worried that may come off as kind of elitist. Ideas?
ETA: Here are the finalists so far. I’ll add other promising ideas as I see them.
Learned sages deserve real wages
First Class Faculty, Not Second Class Citizens
Keep CCSF from Losing its Faculties
Cost of livin’ should be a given
Good teachers are priceless, not free
You can’t put students first if you put faculty last
Wow. I’ve seen both the private and public sectors in California* finally increase wages as of this year and work with union on new contract agreements. I can’t believe that it’s been almost 10 years and your CoCo district hasn’t worked with the union.
Unfortunately, I’ve never been good at pithy sayings.
Best of luck tomorrow!
*Although CSUs are currently fighting for living wages in the higher real estate markets.
It’s a community college, so not much opportunity for students to get action on campus anyway. (Upside: also much easier to earn a degree without taking on crippling amounts of debt.)
In my last faculty strike (2001), the signs were mainly simple “On Strike” signs. However, a colleague in the Art Dept. put together this wonderful thing:
I also walked the picket line as a TA in 1980; here’s a photo (I’m probably in the crowd, but not in the frame). The best sign is around 20% in from the right-hand side; you should stealadapt that one:
Which is good, I guess.
