Jan Resseger writes about the West Virginia teachers strike here. Every teacher in 55 counties is out on strike. Strikes as sweeping as this are rare. If the Janus decision cripples Unions, there may be more wildcat strikes like this one, not less. You can oppress working people so much but they have no choice but to organize and fight back.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One effect of the skills-centric, content-lite K-12 curriculum is that Americans don’t know much about unions and the causes of their creation (and downfall). WE MUST TEACH MORE FACTS ABOUT THE WORLD! By privileging skills, we’re fostering ignorance. Because of the dominance of the coal industry, West Virginia is probably one of the few places where labor lore is kept alive by word of mouth.
I just had a transfer student enter my 7th grade class today. I questioned him on what he’d learned in history in the other district. AS IS VERY OFTEN THE CASE with transfer students, his school did not really teach history. My school seems to be anomalous. This student’s former school (in San Jose) combined ELA and history, and teachers only taught history when kids had finished their ELA work, which was almost never. The knowledge infrastructure of our citizens is collapsing. The upside is that kids have awesome skills, right? Ha! Their skills are worse than ever. The skills curriculum is a massive fraud. Teach content and the skills will follow.
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Ten years ago, I did a review of US history texts used in high school. None of them even mentioned labor unions.
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Scandalous.
“People are starting to get angrier and remember our history, remember our roots.” –Jenny Craig, WV teacher (quoted in NYT). History is not dead there. It is dead elsewhere. Teachers must bring it back to life by rejecting the test-prep tyranny.
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Getting rid of history means the oligarchs that want to replace the U.S. Constitution and the republic it protects with a kleptocracy that will also be a fake theocracy will have an easier path to achieving their agenda. Ignorance is a great tool for oppressors.
And we know who those oligarchs are. At the top of that list is David and Charles Koch and all the members of their 45-year-old ALEC machine that was created to achieve the Koch’s agenda mentioned in my first paragraph.
On that note, Democratic Underground.com alleges that “The Koch brothers are psychopaths” just like Donald Trump but Trump is also a malignant narcissist.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10027280680
Who is more dangerous in the long run, Trump or the Koch brothers?
Trump only has his Twitter fingers. The Koch brothers have a vast machine with a long history. ALEC isn’t their only subversive organization.
The Koctopus explained
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This proves my point. The union was useless and even opposed the strike from what I can tell. Hence a wildcat strike. Agency fees have weakened unions, not strengthened them as the leadership became obligated to the guarantors (the state gov.) of the membership and non membership income stream.
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overwhelming to watch national union leaders NOW trying to get on board with what the teachers accomplished without them
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Pathetic. This is why I am opposed to mandatory dues.
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Do you support legislation to stop billionaires from using huge sums of money in secret to influence elections and subvert the U.S. Republic and its Constitution?
One of the few voices left for workers are the labor unions and without money from dues, the unions will become mute and working people will have no voice at all when it comes to elections.
When President Teddy Roosevelt supported the existence of labor unions, even if the elected leaders of labor unions were corrupted, he said corporations were often corrupt too and the workers needed the unions to represent them against big business or the workers would have no voice and be crushed by the ruthless authoritarians that run corporations.
When the elected leaders of a labor union are corrupt the membership can vote them out but corporations are not democratic. Corporations are autocratic and there is no way to vote out the corrupt leaders of corporations. Trump’s business empire is the perfect example. No one can vote out Trump and kick him out of his own businesses, and Trump has a long history of cheating people that work for him and cheating the cities and towns where he does business.
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I don’t see how we cannot have corrupt union leaders when their salaries are essentially guaranteed by agency fees. Randi Weingarten AFT/UFT & affiliates accepted I believe 15 million dollars from Bill Gates for his “Common Core” program. Lily Eskelsen (NEA) 25 million, I believe. When some teachers in NYC expressed doubts about the Common Core Michael Mulgrew the UFT President said he would “punch in the mouth” opponents of the CC. When the CC lost support he claimed it as a victory!!! These jokers are not responsible to their members. Everybody talks about Wisonsin. How about West Virginia? Wildcat successful strike without support of the union leadership. All of a sudden union leaders in Oklahoma are talking statewide strike. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the UFT called for some sort of job action to appear tough in the event of a loss in the Janus case.
By the way, W. Va. is a right-to-work state and strike are illegal yet look at the results. Again, I believe teachers or any worker would voluntarily pay dues if they perceived a value.
There were two strikes in NYC when there was a 2 day loss of pay for each day out on strike. One of those lasted more than a few days. Following those strikes, last was aroiund 1967, the Taylor Law was amended to include agency fees and their repeal in the event of a strike. Result: no strikes since.
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Once again, I repeat (REPEAT), labor unions are democratic institutions and the members that pay dues, vote for their leadership at the local, state and national levels. At any time, those members can vote out the current crop of crooks and attempt to vote in someone they hope is honest.
In addition, many locals do not fall into step behind the alleged corrupt state or national leaders. Each local has their own elected president who is usually a classroom teacher and some of the dues goes to the local. At the local level, there is an elected represenative council of teachers from all of that district’s schools that decide how to spend their share of the monthly dues.
Corporations are not democratic organizations. For instance, no one can vote out Trump and kick him out of his corporate office. Allegedly, even the U.S.Constitution can’t remove him from his role as the micromanager of the Trump organization.
In fact, we just saw how union members voted in West Virginia to ignore their elected members and went on strike anyway.
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The UFT makes it very hard to vote out a sitting president or even to replace a retiring president that isn’t hand picked by the retiring UFT president. Incumbency is the best guarantor of winning an election. There has NEVER been a retiring UFT president that served out the final year until completion. Every retiring UFT president appointed an interim acting 3 – 6 months before (or longer) the next election effectively making the interim acting an incumbent. Voter turnout in the UFT is only about 25%. The UFT does not provide a platform to allow voters an informed and real choice. The current system is simply not working for the teachers. I recall how I was treated by the UFT representative when I wanted to file a complaint against a principal. The rep was rude, repeatedly cut me off before I could complete a statement. Ultimately the UFT did help as I had a signed document in support of my case and I won in arbitration. I know of two teachers with 32 & 37 years experience who received their first “U” ratings in 2009. Bothcomplained to Mulgrew at an annual meeting, both stated they had to hire their own lawyers as the union offered no help, and both won in court. Mulgrew was completely silent when asked by them why the union was no help.
Time for a change.
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“Time for a change” – getting rid of labor unions is not the answer. But that is exactly what, for instance, the Koch brothers, ALEC, and the Walton family want – to get rid of labor unions.
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The West Va wildcat strike is historic, perhaps it will trigger similar rank-and-file led walkouts in other states ready to go, like Florida, Oklahoma, etc., where conditions are terrible. The 45-year continuing assault by govt. and corporations on labor and the public sector has driven education, health care, housing, transit, parks, playgrounds, sanitation, etc., to the brink of collapse. Rank and file union members have been led to the cliff by their own union leaders who let things get worse and worse while collaborating with one ridiculous billionaire tech testing scheme or another. Best we can hope for is that wildcat strikes spread with solidarity to force a turnaround in policy; if strikes do spread and gain ground, the union leadership will scurry to the head of the picket lines to pretend they have always been in full support, at which point these dreadful leaders should be forced back indoors to consult with the nervous authorities they represent, while outside new authentic militant leadership that works for teachers, kids, families, and communities is finally installed.
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I have maintained that agency fees that guarantee unions their dues essentially made the leadership beholden to the politicians that enacted these regulations. Hence the unions ignored the best interests of their members because they didn’t need to produce real results since members AND non members dues were automatically deducted and paid.
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Thankfully, Howard Zinn’s series on U.S. history is still in use at many colleges and universities, providing much needed background on the labor movement to students who have never been exposed to this information.
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