A Los Angeles County judge ruled that Los Angeles teachers can go on strike on Monday. Negotiations are continuing, so we’ll see what happens. Meanwhile historian Nelson Lichtenstein offers some important background on the teachers' struggle in that city:
Indeed, when the union held a strike ballot in August 2018, 98 percent of the membership voted yes, and over a thousand teachers who were not yet members joined UTLA in order to cast their ballots too. Post-Janusunion density stands at an extraordinary 96 percent, the highest ever.
This kind of commitment could not exist without great community support, which the union had carefully nurtured through its “Bargaining for the Common Good” program that links union demands for better schools to the particular problems faced by L.A.’s often insecure immigrant community. In mid-December 50,000 Los Angelinos joined a demonstration in support of UTLA demands for smaller classes, higher wages, and a cap on charter schools.
If the LA teachers do strike, following last year’s wave of teacher strikes in mostly red states, as well as a historic charter school strike in Chicago, it will be a major moment for worker power and the strength of public education. We’ll see ...
● Here's a win!
24 California port truck drivers employed by
NFI Industries/California Cartage, the largest goods movement operator at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, have been awarded nearly $6 million by the California Labor Commissioner for wage theft due to misclassification as independent contractors. In an unprecedented decision, the Labor Commissioner issued individual joint liability against the general manager at NFI’s California Cartage Express who oversaw and directed the day-to-day work, and misclassification of, the 24 drivers.
● Disaster averted: How unions have dodged the blow of Janus (so far).
● From academic to assembly line worker:
The trend towards low-wage, insecure jobs has been proceeding in blue-collar and service industries for decades. Many are surprised to see it now afflicting the bearers of advanced degrees; adjuncts have been called the “fast-food workers of the academic world.” But I’d point out that in order to make ends meet, some adjuncts may actually find themselves pulling shifts as actual fast-food workers—or fried-food inspectors, in my case.
Sorting through chips for $9 an hour, I made just a dollar more per hour than when I started at my first newspaper job more than 20 years ago.
● Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's clothes and early female labor activists.
● How Four Roses bourbon workers won their strike.
● Trump’s government was a very bleak workplace for many. Then it shut down.
But now that you mention it, Trump said one thing that rang true to an old smoke eater. “He said we need more forest management,” the firefighter said. “And yeah, we absolutely need to.”
Tight budgets notwithstanding, he said, his crew spends each winter clearing out excess brush and burning it in piles. Taking care of the floors, so to speak.
That’s what he would be doing right now, he said, had the shutdown not cut off the funding and forced his crew to stop.