During my career as a high school teacher, I was an active member of the Seattle Education Association. Whenever management at Seattle Public Schools—known colloquially as “the district”—was in a mood to speak congenially about the Association, it would refer to us as their “labor partners.” This term, I think, was meant to be conciliatory in tone. While the district’s managers typically thought of themselves as being in charge, and unconsciously or consciously thought of themselves as being superior in vision to the large number of people they managed, they nonetheless, in their public communication, would condescend to refer to us as their “partners.” As if that were a compliment.
In my view, district managers too often had a parasitic relationship to the large numbers of people who performed the bulk of the work in the district. By a factor of many times over, most of the labor hours were performed by the teachers, instructional aides, paraprofessionals, nurses, counselors, mental health professionals, social workers, security staff, office managers, receptionists, tech support, custodians, grounds keepers, mail system staff, lunch staff, maintenance and construction workers, movers, and other nonmanagement staff that district managers claimed to be in partnership with.
Every few years, especially when our collective bargaining agreement had to be renegotiated, the members of the Association found it necessary to remind district management that they couldn’t run the schools by themselves. Without us, no child would be taught in a public school classroom. This point was pressed by the necessity of withholding our labor, usually for short periods of time, but sometimes for a week or ten days. In all cases, the Association required the broad support of the public—parents, in particular—to drive that point home. Without the unwavering support of our community of parents, the Association would have failed to force the district to take seriously our demands at the bargaining table. Community support was all-important.
I am now happily retired, both as a teacher and as a union activist, but I have been thinking a lot about my experience during the recent conflict between the Daily Kos Guild and Daily Kos management. We’ve heard a little about the revenue issues that Daily Kos is experiencing, but we know little to nothing about Daily Kos’ management structure, its costs and debt obligations (if any), and its cost-saving measures. But there is one thing we do know: the bulk of the labor hours are performed at Daily Kos by nonmanagement staff. No matter how much pride Daily Kos management takes in the work they’ve done since the founding of the company, no matter how important they believe their roles are to the continuation of the company, they are not doing most of the work. That work is being performed by the people who do all the day-to-day tasks that make the Daily Kos the great place it is for our community. Without them, we would not be able to come together to discuss the political issues of the day and to organize to fight for justice at all levels of society.
As one person who has been participating in this community since 2005, I want to express my unequivocal support for the people who are carrying out the work at the Daily Kos. My hope is that in the coming days and weeks, we’ll learn more about not only the staff writers who make up the Guild, but also all of the other people who make the place work—tech support, researchers, editors, assistants and whoever else enables us to enjoy this gathering place, with its bracing discussions, its dissemination of knowledge and insights, its practical guidance, and its inspiration in dark times. We need your work, and I would love to know more about your contributions to the Daily Kos.