The Senate will vote early in the coming week on whether to confirm an education secretary who has never attended public school, never sent her kids to public school, never worked as an educator, never had anything to do with education but using her money to try to privatize public education. She’s largely had her way in Michigan, and it’s been a disaster for Michigan students, schools, and teachers. Now Donald Trump wants to give her a chance to do the same to the whole country.
And we just need one more vote to defeat her.
I’m not going to lie, it’s a long shot. We’re talking about getting a Republican to do the right thing, when the person they’d be rejecting is a huge Republican donor. But you can’t win if you don’t try. So what are you doing this weekend?
If you’re one of their constituents, give Deb Fischer (Nebraska) and Dean Heller (Nevada) and Jeff Flake (Arizona) and John McCain (Arizona) and Cory Gardner (Colorado) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska) and John Hoeven (North Dakota) reason to stop and think about whether DeVos is worth it. Even if your Republican senator isn’t on that list of potential targets, give them a call. Find out if one of them will be meeting with the public over the next few days and show up. Let them know that Betsy DeVos is not an acceptable choice.
● Republicans are poised to repeal important worker protections, starting with the requirement that federal contractors play fair.
● When raising the minimum wage is a bad thing.
● Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
● And speaking of which, five steps to maintain unity and membership under right to work.
● Sarah Jaffe: #DeleteUber is introducing a new generation to the horrors of scabbing.
These days (and in this economy), we’re more likely to hear justifications for crossing a picket line that are born of necessity, but also of the ascendance of neoliberal, me-first ideology. “I have to take care of myself,” people will argue. “No one else is going to do it for me.”
Yet the promise of the labor movement, summed up in the old Industrial Workers of the World slogan “An injury to one is an injury to all,” is that we will, in fact, take care of each other. It is in that spirit that the taxi workers struck, and in that spirit that protesters struck back at Uber. And indeed, according to the Taxi Workers’ statement, Uber drivers were among those who struck Saturday night, and the union stressed its representation of Uber and Lyft drivers as well as those who drive traditional cabs.
● Trump's labor pick's restaurants had cooks “puking into the garbage.”
● Interviews for resistance: Why teachers unions are the best bet to transform the labor movement.
● Workers Independent News: