The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted March 2 to send layoff notices to more than 5,200 workers. These included 2,000 elementary school teachers, 2,370 certified management employees, 321 secondary teachers and teachers in the arts, and 574 support personnel, including counselors, psychologists, nurses and librarians. The district is facing a $640 million budget gap.

The LAUSD is required by law to notify teachers at least six months in advance of the next school year of any possibility they will lose their jobs, even if not all employees are ultimately fired. Just under a year ago the school board approved 5,400 layoff notices for teachers, janitors, counselors and administrators. While federal stimulus monies were able to minimize losses to a certain extent, in the end 2,000 educators and staff lost their jobs.

In taking this action, Los Angeles is following a statewide trend. Just recently, San Francisco sent out 900 layoff notices, while the city of Long Beach sent out 755.

A spate of fatal house fires has occurred in Detroit since the beginning of the year, the majority of which have claimed victims who had their electrical and gas service cut off by the utility giant DTE Energy.

The tragedies—including a January 5 fire on Dexter Ave. that killed two disabled men and a third resident, and a March 4 blaze on Bangor Street, which claimed the lives of three small children—occur as city officials are outlining plans to force residents out of poor neighborhoods and bulldoze their houses in order to eliminate sewerage, public lighting, fire protection and other services to whole swaths of the city.

Meanwhile, the mayor is continuing to gut basic services to the population. The Detroit Free Press reported Monday that Mayor David Bing’s administration is “exploring consolidating the city’s health and human services department, closing the Herman Kiefer health complex and shuttering all but two Neighborhood City Halls,” in order to save $2 million a year.

Detroit area media and city and state authorities have launched a witch-hunt against Sylvia Young, the mother of three young children who died in a March 2 house fire on Bangor Street on Detroit's west side.

The basic facts of the case are not in dispute. Energy giant DTE Energy cut off unauthorized gas and electricity hook-ups to the house earlier in the day. Electrical power was soon reactivated, evidently by order of the landlord, who left Young with a faulty and dangerous space heater. As temperatures dropped toward freezing, Young went to purchase new space heaters. While she was gone a fire consumed the house, killing her children Tro’vion Young, five, Fantasia Young, four and Selena Young, three. Her 12-year-old son Tywon was able to rescue three siblings, including an infant who he tossed from a window to neighbors below.

On March 4, tens of thousands of students and workers demonstrated in opposition to education cuts throughout the United States.

The largest marches were held in California, where state and local governments have pushed through a 32 percent increase in fees for many college students, along with deep cuts in K-12, community college and university education funding. This month, tens of thousands of teachers in the state will receive notices that they could be laid off by the fall.

The demonstrations are an initial manifestation of growing anger and resistance to the policies of the corporate and financial elite. Their significance extends far beyond California. The same agenda of cost cutting is being imposed throughout the country, spearheaded by the Obama administration. Obama has publicly supported the mass firing of teachers and is blackmailing states into expanding charter schools and into carrying out other attacks on public education.

The March 4 demonstrations were not simply student demonstrations; they reflect a developing movement in the working class. As the San Diego rally marched through downtown, hundreds of working class students from local high schools joined in, as did many local workers, who left their houses and workplaces to join the demonstration.

In the aftermath of the deaths of 14 Detroiters as a result of utility shutoffs over the last two months, the media, the utility company and state and local officials have attempted to shift the blame onto the victims, claiming they failed to seek the help that is readily available.

Michigan Public Service Commission spokeswoman Judy Panlau told the World Socialist Web Site, “There are a number of shutoff programs available, such as the Winter Protection Plan. The utility is also happy to take calls.”

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s spokesman said, “We also want to remind the community that there are resources available in times of need: Our Department of Human Services, THAW, and United Way’s 2-1-1.”

In the coverage of these tragic incidents, the media has repeatedly pointed to THAW as a source of assistance.

One might believe from these statements that help is just a phone call away. That could not be further from the truth.

The Winter Protection Plan is available to senior citizens 65 older, as well as certain categories of low-income households, during the period December 1-March 31. Bills continue to accrue during that four-month period and customers are responsible for payment once their account comes due on April 1. Many shutoffs take place as a result. 

Membership meetings of UFCW locals representing supermarket workers in three New England states voted Sunday to accept a new contract with Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., ending three months of talks and the threat of strike action.

The union announced a tentative agreement the day before the meetings, stating that it would be recommending the contract, which they hailed as safeguarding health care benefits and pensions, while providing general wage increases.

The company employs 36,000 workers represented by five union locals in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. About 80 percent are part-time workers, some of whom earn the minimum wage. More than 30 percent of the part-time workforce is made up of so-called career part-timers with two or more years of service.

The previous contract expired February 20, and workers in all three states unanimously endorsed strike authorization. The union immediately agreed to a one-week extension of negotiations and then a further extension when no agreement had been reached by February 27.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education announced on Thursday a list of 35 so-called underperforming schools, where the jobs and contracts of teachers are directly threatened.

That same day in Boston, the state capital, Mayor Thomas Mennino and Superintendent Carol R. Johnson announced that teachers at six “underperforming” city schools would be forced to reapply for their jobs, and that five school principals would be reassigned to different positions.

The moves follow the February 23 firing of all 74 teachers and 19 other staff members at a public high school just over the Massachusetts border in Central Falls, Rhode Island. School Superintendent Frances Gallo carried out the wholesale firings at Central Falls High School after teachers rejected demands to work extra hours without pay.

The mass firings of the Central Falls teachers were based on the Obama administration’s national strategy to deal with 5,000 of the nation’s “failing schools,” located overwhelmingly in impoverished working class areas.

About 1,000 students and faculty gathered at a March 4 rally against education cuts at San Diego State University in California. A similar number of people demonstrated at the University of California, San Diego. A subsequent demonstration in downtown San Diego drew several thousand.

The events in San Diego were among the largest demonstrations in the state. Tens of thousands of students, parents and workers demonstrated throughout the country against school closings, tuition hikes, and teacher layoffs. (See, “Students and staff protest against education cuts in US”)

Among the main speakers at the San Diego rallies were members of the International Students for Social Equality, the student organization of the Socialist Equality Party. The ISSE, which helped organize the demonstration at SDSU, called for a break with the Democratic Party and for a socialist movement to defend education.

Despite their size, the San Diego rallies went largely unreported in the media. If their numbers were mentioned, they were generally reported as “hundreds.” This was part of what appeared to be a general attempt by the media to downplay the significance of the demonstrations.