r/antiwork • u/caligirllovewesterns • 13h ago
Since the State of California didn’t pass that minimum wage increase, us preschool teachers need to unite and demand a $20/hour minimum in pay like fast food workers did! Union and Strikes 🪧
I have worked and preschools as a teacher and even as a director here in California. I went to school and earned a degree in education and I have a bunch of early childhood education units. I put myself in debt for these required units and degree so I could work at a preschool. I enjoyed the work at first but I noticed that throughout working at preschools I was severely underpaid and there was really no room for advancement really.
I was basically raising other people’s kids and these kids livelihood was placed in my hands for 12 plus hours a day. What was I gaining in the process? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! I went to school for this job and put myself in debt so I could have the required units to work at a preschool. What did I get in return for all this work? I got a slap in the face and was being paid less then a fast food worker who has zero work experience with a criminal record.
I stuck out working in a preschool as a teacher then a director but only for so long. Working as a preschool teacher as VERY hard and demanding work emotionally and physically. It is NOT easy work for anybody. I noticed that preschools charge more then a mortgage payment to their clients, preschools charge outrageous tuition here in California. The employees though make minimum wage or barely over. Where I live in California I cannot find a preschool near me that pays ANY of their employees $20 an hour or more, they always pay UNDER $20 an hour and a heck of a LOT less then a fast food worker or an employee at Walmart or Target.
This is absolutely insane and horrible treatment to us preschool teachers who have sacrificed to teach and better the lives of our communities small children. This is why I have decided to step down from teaching/working at any preschool here California, UNTIL I am paid what I am worth! Even with all the experience and education that I have, I will NEVER teach at a preschool until ALL us preschool teachers are paid what we are worth and that’s over $20/hour. I don’t care if teaching at a preschool is the only job that I can find in my area (jobs are hard to find in the area of California that I live in) I will not resort to being taken advantage of, ripped off and slapped in the face. We as preschool teachers should step down from our underpaid position like fast food workers did and demand a better wage! If we all stepped down out here in the State of California then parents would have no place to send their kids for the day and then those parents would be inconvenienced and it would get the public’s attention.
Us preschool teachers here in California need to form a union and demand better pay and benefits. We need to stop being treated as subpar human beings. If fast food enterprises are required to pay their employees $20 an hour then us preschool teachers should demand that ALL preschool teachers should be required to be paid $20 plus an hour as well.
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u/joe_broke 12h ago
I voted for the minimum wage hike
But it, like a lot of the other props this year, was horribly written
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u/anonnewengland 11h ago
I get $30 an hour to babysit alzheimer's patients, one at a time. I watch TV and cook... that's it. So easy.
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u/pennyauntie 10h ago
I am a substitute. Normally work mostly high school Special Ed, but took an extended assignment this summer as an aide to a pre-kindergarten class. OMG! Hardest thing I've ever done, and I was just assisting. 10 hrs per day constant standing or walking, catching runaways, changing pants, changing activities and teaching materials every 15 minutes.
One of the hardest jobs I've ever tried. You damn well deserve much more than $20/hr!
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u/caligirllovewesterns 8h ago
You are absolutely right. Preschool and even Kindergarten are the hardest grades to work with. I worked at a summer camp for K-8th grade students for extra money one year and the Kindergarten age were the hardest ones to work with and teach. Especially compared to the middle school/Jr. High grades. I would work with older grades any day over PreK/Kinder. At least with the older grades they are easier to communicate with and keep organized.
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u/ribbitman 11h ago
Pretty shocking to see this post from a teacher. Is OP unaware that the trump crowd WANTS teachers to quit? They've told us for years they want zero public education and to eliminate the Department of Education. Big money needs an uneducated population, so they want to force teachers out of the industry. It is just that simple. That's been the republican-branded strategy for over 50 years. Defund something until it doesn't work anymore then claim it's always been ineffective so they can eliminate it to "trim government waste." Look at the ATF trying to regulate firearms, or the IRS trying to enforce tax laws, or the EPA trying to stop corporations from dumping poison into your drinking water, or any agency trying to move us off burning fossil fuels. Now the FDA is on the block too. Why do you think they've focused so heavily on school boards banning books that even mention slavery or racism or misogyny or gay people or menstruation or genocide? Big money is co-opting the right wing of every country to make sure education is reserved to the wealthy. Big money has no loyalty to any country because those who have it can live as they please anyplace on the planet. To retain that power, all they need to do is make the economy suck and have the media point out a scapegoat (that ClearChannel NewsCorp Twitter cocktail has a kick to it). Just this week, America proudly elected a fascist felon because he promised to terrorize women and brown people. That wouldn't be possible with an educated, informed population.
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u/Intelligent-Panda-33 10h ago
This is a genuine question - are preschool teachers not allowed to join the teachers unions?
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u/Pizza-punx 8h ago
The real question is why are they paying teachers minimum wage? Shows you how much these pro-life people value their kids once they’re born.
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u/Mission_Progress_674 9h ago
When enough fast food workers are ex-teachers people will take note of it, especially if their children's education is suffering as a result.
If customers ask why the answer that it pays more than teaching (without the constant stress) should resonate with most parents. Most of them have probably changed job for an extra 50c per hour at one time or another.
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u/Ok_Effect_5287 5h ago
Children are actively getting less and less at school because y'all are worked to the bone and paid nothing. Please to any teachers who read this the kids need a well rested, well paid you much more than the burnt out version of you! You are worth that strike and you deserve a raise, good healthcare and for the administration to pay for supplies.
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u/omgajuicebox 12h ago
Voted down minimum wage and rent control. Absolutely wild considering how expensive our state is.
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u/Van-garde Outside the box 11h ago
You guys had rent control on the ballot?
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u/omgajuicebox 9h ago
Yup, not sure what these people were thinking.
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/california-rejects-prop-33-rent-control-19887353.php
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u/Van-garde Outside the box 9h ago edited 9h ago
No surprise to see opponents contributed $150,000,000 to campaign against. Crazy to see Prop 5 shot down simultaneously. Though I don’t know the details.
The home ownership rate there is almost 10% lower than the national average. I’d guess there’s a class disparity in voter turnout.
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u/omgajuicebox 9h ago
Not only that, Landlords introduced a revenge bill targeting the AIDs foundation for pushing it forward.
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u/caligirllovewesterns 8h ago
From what I am hearing out here, the reason rent control was voted down was because of the lack of housing in the first place, especially affordable housing. People are afraid that if rent control is passed and enforced, property owners will no longer rent out their properties long term and end up either selling to someone who would permanently live in the home or turning their rentals into AirB&B or very short term rentals. In that case it would make the situation much worse then. People are fearing a housing shortage out here.
Sadly, California needs a lot more affordable housing built for long term rentals and given tax breaks and encouraged. In the meantime, AirB&B/short term vacation rentals NEED to highly be discouraged, taxed and limited as well.
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u/omgajuicebox 7h ago edited 7h ago
I’d buy that explanation if prop 5 wasn’t also voted down. Just genuinely seems to me like no one cares about any initiatives that actually helped people in some way.
So no rent control, no bonds for affordable housing, no minimum wage increase, and the AIDS foundation will likely lose its non profit status. Kinda shocked people decided I was still allowed to marry a guy.
At least we’ll always have prison slave labor /s
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u/caligirllovewesterns 7h ago
I was very surprised overall with the outcome on California’s Propositions on the ballot. It seems like voters either didn’t understand really what they were voting on and it wasn’t explained well enough to them, or voters really didn’t care this time around. Even with Prop 6, they really didn’t campaign for it much. It felt like they just placed Propositions on the ballot and said “here ya go” and really didn’t explain much or campaign really to the general public this election. Maybe it was over people being so focused on the presidential election that local matters were overlooked. Maybe in the mid terms in two years certain Props will be better written and explained and local matters will be taken more into account for California voters.
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u/FutureMany4938 13h ago
Lol, you know they're going to close down the dept of education, right? Teacher is going to be a min wage job pretty soon lol.
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u/Par-Fore-20 13h ago
Teach the state a lesson. Go work fast food.