Jim Miller heard about the idea of walking to Sacramento on a "march for California's future" when Dean Murakami, president of the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers, first proposed it in August.  “Lots of people wondered whether this was really viable,” Miller recalls.  “Could we really do it?”

But as a teacher of English and Labor Studies at San Diego City College, he also remembered other marches up through the San Joaquin Valley that revolutionized the thinking of people at the time.  He recalled particularly the seminal march from Delano to Sacramento led by Cesar Chavez in 1966, which put the nascent United Farm Workers on the map, and then the march in 1994 by the UFW, the year after Chavez’ death.

“Dean knew about those marches, and as a labor studies teacher, I was aware of them too,” he says.  “History shows that poor farm workers captured the imagination of millions of people with hardly any resources.  As teachers, we’re in better shape financially, so it should be easier for us.  And we are fighting for the same social justice issues.”

Not just a slogan

That vision of social justice isn’t just a slogan, Miller argues, but a necessary step in transforming the labor movement itself, so that it will become able to defeat the gutting of the educational system, and achieve goals that go beyond that.  “I believe in the CFT we are moving towards social movement unionism, or as some people call it, social justice unionism, and beyond the old ideas of ‘bread and butter.’” 

Miller doesn’t argue that the union should not fight for better contracts, but he says that its goals must reach out to the community beyond the college or school.  “We need to seek allies to win our battles, especially this one,” he explains, “so we need a vision of social justice that includes their goals as well.  That’s why I’m so proud of the vision of this march.  It’s about the future of our whole state, and it involves everyone.”

The march will seek to gain public support for three main ideas:

• Restore the promise of public education;
• Rebuild a government and economy that works for all Californians;
• Enact a fair tax system to fund California's future.

Miller also warns about the reverse danger.  The climate of budget cuts pits people against each other, as different groups and constituencies seek to defend what they have.  “It’s education versus healthcare, community colleges versus K-12, students versus the very poor,” he warns.  “The whole strategy here is divide and conquer, while the top one percent of the population saw its income double in the last ten years.  So we’re already reaching out to parents, community groups and others to break down those divides and stereotypes.  This will really help us convince the public that teachers care about the poor, and care about our communities.”

Miller and his wife, Kelly Mayhew, have been pursuing this vision for many years.  They went to graduate school together at Bowling Green University in Kentucky in the early 1990s, gaining degrees in American cultural studies.  Together they came to California, and began teaching in San Diego.  For Mayhew especially it was a hard road, with classes for the first two years in four institutions – San Diego City, San Diego State, Cal State San Marcos, and UC San Diego.             

Muckrakers

The march will not be the first time Miller and Mayhew have worked together on a major project.  The two collaborated on a muckraking history of San Diego with sociologist Mike Davis, Under the Perfect Sun, published in 2003.  Davis profiled the county’s moneyed interests and political shenanigans, Miller outlined its history of labor and social movements, and Mayhew interviewed activists and labor leaders.  “We wanted to disrupt peoples’ image of San Diego as a tourist paradise, and in particular I wanted to present a rich tapestry of real voices,” Mayhew says.  “Jim and I have always worked together, and written together.  We have different styles and ways of going about it, but they’re very complementary.  Now it’s going to be kind of weird not having him around for seven weeks.”

Mayhew finally got her full time contract at San Diego City in 1999.  She teaches women’s studies now in San Diego.“I love teaching at community college,” she enthuses.  “We have the most socially and economically diverse campus in the county.  It has mostly working class students, with no ethnic group a majority.  We have immigrants here from all over.  It’s like living at the crossroads of the world.  Our median age is 26, so as honors coordinator, I look for a way to help people to transfer to 4-year universities.”

Miller and Mayhew are hoping that student activists will walk at least part of the way, and take the message of the march into the communities where they live.  “Our students are organizing for the March 4th Day of Action that precedes the march,” she says. “Then many are going up to the valley to walk over spring break.”

At the first big meeting to discuss it, the San Diego AFT local not only fully supported the march, but more than 30 members volunteered to walk at least part of the way.  The San Diego/Imperial Counties Central Labor Council also passed a resolution backing it.

Where Dad is

Mayhew and Miller belong to the parent teachers club at their son Walt’s elementary school.  “I have a 6-year old who’s very smitten with his daddy,” she says.  So Walt’s teacher has proposed putting up a map in the classroom, and tracking each day “where Dad is.”

As vice-presidents for political action and community outreach of the AFT Guild, Local 1931, Mayhew and Miller have already visited State Senator Christine Kehoe.  “She says she’s on board with efforts to get rid of the two-thirds vote requirement for the state budget,” Mayhew explains.  “But we want to use the march to go beyond that general support.  We’ve heard legislators in Sacramento, including Democrats, tell us we have to look at the cuts as the ‘new normal.’  We want to point out how angry people are, how desperate these times are.”

Like Mayhew, Miller is pressed by a sharp sense of urgency.  “I’m convinced that if we do what we always do, we’re certain to lose.”  While teachers might not be quite used to the farm worker style of living on the march, Miller remembers parts of his own family history that helps keep him motivated.  His father, an engineer at Lockheed in Los Angeles, lost his job in the 1980s, just before he would have qualified for a full pension.  “That inspired my hostility to social Darwinism – watching American business throw him under the bus.”  Miller himself worked blue-collar factory jobs to get through college, and now watches his niece at UCLA trying to survive the coming 32% jump in fees.             

“Personal sacrifice can help us demonstrate the importance of our message,” he says, “so I ask our members, ‘Do a day with me.’  Sometimes you have to lead by example, and I can’t ask someone to do something I’m not willing to do myself.  And it’s not what people had to do a century ago, when the Wobblies were murdered in free speech fights in San Diego, San Pedro and Fresno.  Our movement was built by blood sacrifice, and we’ve gotten used to the idea that being in the labor movement means we just go to meetings.  So now we have to up the ante a little.”

And when history doesn’t quite provide the motivation, he’ll carry his son’s picture on a button.

By David Bacon
[A longer version of this article will appear in the next issue of the CCC Perspective]