November, 2003
I
am a math teacher with the Oklahoma City Public Schools and a candidate for the United States House of Representatives here
in Oklahoma’s 5th District. I strongly support keeping the support personnel’s union
in place and employed here in the Oklahoma City Public Schools.
As I supported the South Vietnamese Army as an Air Cavalry Pilot in 1971,
I visited with these ARVN Soldiers about their current form of government and what they aspired to in the future.
My observation was at that time, and still is, that any democracy needs a strong, educated, and concerned middle class
to survive. Most of these soldiers were going back to their ancestral homes and family rice farms after the war, and had no
perceived personal stake in the decisions their government might make on their behalf. No middle
class emerged there, and the democracy we installed soon failed.
Here in our country today our middle class is shrinking rapidly (some
would say it is under full attack), as the number of our fellow citizens who live in poverty rises and the pay of corporate
executives rises even faster. A union usually helps its members attain first class citizenship and middle class membership
by not requiring, for example, it’s members to utilize emergency rooms as their primary source of health care.
Someone who has a job should not be required to use an emergency room as their first, or only, health care option when
their two-year-old child has an ear ache.
My father was an Ag teacher in Western Oklahoma for over 20 years, and said that there
everyone employed by the school had the same benefits; the superintendent, principals, teachers, coaches, janitors, bus mechanic,
and lunchroom cooks. That seemed to be a pretty good system. If I were still teaching
at Moon, today or in the future, I would be extremely embarrassed if I left the building with a severe persistent cough, on
my way to the doctor, and the door happened to be courteously held open by the janitor with the same cough, who didn’t
have access to the same health care system that I do.
Oklahoma City Public Schools will be a better place with our service
worker’s union in place.
Sincerely,
Bert Smith
