This statement needs to be thoroughly examined before UESF members accept an inadequate pay raise.  A couple of points here.

During the 2008 recession, 555 Franklin administrators took pay raises and hired new admin, while UESF members took furlough days (a pay cut).  Intrepid teachers found this out through a request for information (RFI) through the California Public Records Act.  Even worse, the security guards were cheated out of an hour a day of pay at that time, which in addition to the furlough days, meant that they took an even larger pay cut!  Some of the lowest paid employees, virtually all  people of color.   Ask them about losing their homes, commutes of two hours each way, their second jobs.

An RFI filed by UESF last summer revealed that the combined salaries of the top 13 individual central office administrators is 2.6 million dollars!  More than enough to fund a half percent of a raise for all UESF members!!  A one percent raise costs 4.2 million per year.  Is what those individuals are doing really that important?

UESF can’t directly bargain over the salaries of other SFUSD employees, but they can plant their feet and say to the district, “This is what the educators in the classroom NEED, now go and find it”, thus forcing the school district to maybe make some hard choices and restructure top admin among other things.

As it is now, UESF members are being told that they have to make the hard choices, “Oh well you are going to have to continue to financially scrape along from month to month”, and leave the district, and spend hours commuting, and drive for Uber, etc.

Your union should use your collective strength to flip the narrative and challenge what the school district says.   Educators NEED that money.

There are many more things to say about this “no money” issue.  Local school district ARE facing financial challenges, no doubt about it!   But please make your union work for YOU, and the schools and students you serve!