Over a century ago, a young teacher named Margaret Haley became active in the Chicago Teachers Federation. She and other members of the Federation became outraged by a proposal that would impose business practices on the schools and institute a new salary plan that favored mostly male high school teachers over mostly female elementary teachers. They organized and defeated the proposal.
In 1899, Haley led a campaign for better funding of the Chicago schools. She brandished tax records of the city’s biggest businesses, showing that they were not paying their fair share. As a result of her exposé, corporate taxes were raised as was school funding.
Margaret Haley is today recognized as a founder of the teachers’ union movement.
But some things never change. I recently received a copy of a report published in 2011 by a group called the Public Accountability Initiative. The report lists the businesses and individuals who have contributed to a campaign (“The Committee to Save New York”) to keep taxes low while their own corporations benefit from tax benefits and tax avoidance. The report refers to these corporations and individual s as the “Committee to Scam New York.”
The report shows how the Committee to Save New York is a coalition of many different pro-business, anti-tax lobbies. It also shows that its members have benefited by tax breaks and tax avoidance. The consequences: vast wealth for the rich, unemployment and poverty for everyone else.
Margaret Haley would have been delighted–and outraged–by this report.
Thanks for this bit of history. It was new to me. As they say, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” [But, of course, the French Revolution was a watershed changing event]
Every time I read how these big corporations and/or wealthy people are cheating people of lesser means, I feel sick. This made me feel sick. It is a slap in the face to Margaret Haley that someone has to come forward and fight this again. I teach Sunday School and all the teaching I do is how to treat others. It sickens me that some adults don’t know how to treat others. If it wasn’t for people like you, Dr. Ravitch, many of us would not know this stuff is going on. Thank you for fighting for all of us.