On May 20, there will be an informed discussion of the recent wave of strikes and what it portends for the future of the labor movement.
The event is at Housing Works Cafe at 126 Crosby Street in NYC.
The event is free and features organizers and journalists in the contemporary labor movement who will discuss recent union rebellions across the country—including teachers, graduate students, museum staff, and media workers—the causes for this wave of strikes and organizing, and what lessons can be taken for workers, staffers, and activists.
With Bianca Cunningham (organizer & writer, Labor Notes, former CWA), Eric Blanc, (author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave And Working-Class Politics (Verso Books)), Kim Kelly (Teen Vogue’s “No Class” & WGA East council, former VICE Union) & LeNair Xavier (worker & organizer, Pleasure Chest)
Full info is here: https://strikewave.splashthat.com
Eric Blanc traveled the country to cover each of the teacher strikes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yay. Finally.
Many workers are tired of being exploited by employers. Most unions are on life support. The fact that so many of these jobs actions are often happening in red states shows that teachers and other employees are fed up and not driven by labor organizers. Unless workers organize and demand better pay, benefits and working conditions, their dire straits will continue to be ignored by management.
Eric Blanc was interviewed by Sam Seder on his podcast The Majority Report on May 7 about his book, Red State Revolt. One interesting fact Blanc learned from his time with the organizers was how the lack of a strong union in WV spurred on a more radical approach to challenging the Republican Gov & legislature. The teachers who organized the action walked out in spite of the WV’s union leadership’s desire to compromise. |
Sedar delved into the social aspects of the walk-outs by asking him if the nature of teacher’s natural connections to communities may be why there was so much public support for the walk outs. It’s clear from this strike & the other strikes that social justice activism works across party and across class lines. Everyone in the local communities supported the teachers and teachers, in turn, demanded salary increases for themselves and all state employees.
Here’s the link if you want to listen to a fine interview.
https://majorityreportradio.com/2019/05/07/5-7-teacher-strikes-red-states-in-revolt-w-eric-blanc-m
Good piece about ed reformers are planning to stop their employees from joining unions:
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/05/13/new-schools-venture-fund-conference-charter-strategize-unions-politics/
It was billed as a charter schools and ed tech conference, but it sounds like a group who got together to eradicate labor unions.
Which would, of course, very much please their funders.
It’s satisfying to see those accustomed to steamrolling have to stop & think about their goals. “One challenge some see is a disconnect between the charter leaders and the communities they work in.”
“’Most of us in education reform have refused to lock arms with our families and our children in their communities on stuff like affordable housing, on stuff like food insecurity, on stuff like trauma,’ said Tosha Downey at the Memphis Education Fund.”
Looks like some at least are beginning to wonder if they’re actually serving the public interest.
The Waltons pour hundreds of millions into charters and TFA specifically to break teachers’ unions. The one remaining union stronghold.
Yup. The quotes I picked up sound like they’re from well-meaning activists who get suckered into doing ground-level work for the anti-public deep pockets.
What’s interesting to me about the new labor activism is it doesn’t seem to matter if they are actually in a union.
The Uber and Lyft drivers are barred from organizing, and they’re doing it anyway.
Half of these teacher strikes are not permissible under laws that restrict the ability to join a union, and the teachers don’t care. They’re acting collectively anyway.
Labor unions have been around a long, long time. I don’t think all the politicians in the world can successfully eradicate them. They’re not going to be able to squelch the whole idea of collective action. They tried. It just didn’t work.
It’s what unionization is about—labor organizes, stops work in order to extract better working conditions from mgt. It doesn’t need an existing union or laws permitting organization, just a tight labor market.
Most of the teacher strikes have occurred in so-called “right to work” states, where the government opposes collective bargaining.
Unions have taken on the Barack Obama role. They’re purpose now isn’t to actually support workers, any more than Obama’s role was actually to support “Main Street” American. Their actual function is to placate workers with pretty words and urging caution. At most, they are allowed to tinker around the edges, but under no circumstances are they actually going to make meaningful change.
The only good thing about guilded ages is that they are followed by progressive eras. The one begets the other.
I don’t think begets was the right word. Causes would be better.
I think birth a truly apt metaphor. It’s painful, but something beautiful results from it.
That’s only if the mode of govt holds. In other parts of the world, gilded eras have been followed by revolution, military coup/ totalitarianism, fascism.
Teachers, teaching. Awesome.
When I was a boy there was a group of farmers who tried to preserve the traditional farm using collective action. They reasoned that by dumping out their milk for a time, they could force the people who set prices to up the prices. My father was against the idea, and the “milk strike” turned very nasty, with a few barns burned across the state and a few milk tanks shot. Ours was vandalized. My father and older brother slept in the barn, waiting for the cars that cruised the road to stop and confront their non-compliance with the strike.
The strike was, of course, a failure. It was a war against a future that had already happened. Dairy, beef, and hogs were already produced in other states by farmers who dominated the market. The strikers were defeated by modern transportation. They had no idea they were competing with farmers in Iowa and Illinois. Their life was going away, and they did not know what to do about it. Our farm too, was on the economic chopping block, a reality I came to without much business acumen. As price supports came off of milk in the Clinton years, our county’s 112 dairies became 6 and people began to raise cows to be rented to enormous dairies in New Mexico and Kansas.
Now that I have related this, I am not sure it has a point. Some might see the story as a warning of the limitations of collective action. Others might see my father as the villain who broke with the solidarity. In the epilogue of my education, I learned of the value of the labor movement, and I continue to find it of interest and value to the formation of the collective will of society.
I wish I could share the optimism. And I assure you that my pro-union left-wing populist credentials match anyone’s on this blog. Unfortunately when an employer in this country is hell-bent on breaking a union or keeping a union out there is little to stop him. Winning an organizing drive all too often does not guarantee the signing of a first contract. A recalcitrant employer either before reaching an agreement or after a contract has expired can refuse to negotiate, dare a union to walk out and then pursue a decertification drive.
But of course in the public sector, the dynamic is slightly different. Elected officials do have to seek re-election. So the attack on Teachers Unions and other Public sector workers were always framed as these employees working for you (the voter) are overpaid and stealing your money while not performing their jobs. Always the theme of the ed reformers. In large part why I comment on this blog. The dynamic in most of the Red for Ed. States is that teacher pay has sunk so low as to make those depictions absurd. While the populations of those states are also in precarious economic positions. Yet I question whether the assaults will cease after a new contract and it would seem that they haven’t, although tactics may have shifted. In Cities like LA. and Chicago, we can hardly call these recalcitrant employers. The Districts may have been taken over by the Ed reformers but the ultimate employer in these cities(the population) and the greater political dynamic, left-leaning politicians are not anti-Union. As such Andrew Cuomo had a tough time running as a Democrat while attacking Teachers and Public sector Unions in NY in bed with the Waltons, Singer and Rt wing anti-Union money. And even that ego was forced to back away. Although recent days he is attacking transit workers.
The assault on American education is about class struggle. It is about an oligarchy/plutocracy maintaining its grip on political thus economic power. It is no coincidence that the corporate right was inspired by the Powell memo calling for an assault on Higher Education. An assault to which elementary education must be made to contour. Part of that assault least we forget was breaking the faculty unions and turning the professorship into part-time voiceless adjuncts. Moving away from the Humanities and Social Sciences towards more career orientated fields. for careers that may or may not be there in the future and pay less for most than in the past. While the cost of Public college education has been raised to the point that parents and students demand that that education leads to careers.
But while we are celebrating the success of Unions and the call for more militant responses, who here can tell me about the fate of 1800 workers locked out in a decertification drive in the most unionized city in the country. In spite of efforts by the Mayor, the Governor, the Attorney General of the state; that included hundreds of millions in fines. The fact that most here on this educated blog will not be able to tell me the name of the Corporation nor the Union that struck to save pension and healthcare benefits shows we are a long way from the solidarity needed to win this battle.
It has been said that the Triangle sq fire did more for the Union movement than anything that proceeded it. I am afraid we will need a Black Swan moment of even greater impact to move this country forward today.
Joel: I always love the way you lay out your arguments and bring in history. Your reference to the Triangle incident reminds me of the Peterloo incident in Great Britain, when sword waving troops waded into protestors with the result of legitimizing its labor movement.
Perhaps institutions are like that. Not until a few car wrecks almost took some lives did officials see fit to install four-way stops where a busy intersection is near my house. Of course a traffic circle is out of the question, for our state and local government would rather pay the cost of the emergency personnel rather than build safety into a system.
I don’t know if sword waving troops would do it. Dropping bombs from biplanes didn’t do it in this Country. Yet 2 decades later Walter Ruther getting beaten on a bridge in Detroit brought Ford to its knees. Thanks to a photo on the front page of the Detroit News. Still, it did take a few more years.