It was supposed to be impossible for Chicago teachers to legally strike. Just a few years ago, after a hedge fund-backed campaign, state legislators targeted Chicago teachers with the requirement that they would need 75 percent of all teachers—not just 75 percent of those voting on whether to strike—to authorize a strike. But Chicago teachers have met that threshold twice since the law’s passage, striking in 2012 and ready to do so again this spring if the school district doesn’t negotiate a reasonable contract with them.
Back in 2012, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was much, much stronger than he is now, yet one poll found that 47 percent of Chicago voters supported the strike, with 39 percent opposed. Now that Emanuel is struggling, the teachers may be in a stronger position politically … but this strike will come after years of attacks and layoffs and cutbacks have weakened the Chicago schools and their teachers. Chicago Public Schools management is pushing for massive layoffs or for teachers to accept a big pay cut. The teachers are fighting those demands, but they’re also fighting over-reliance on standardized testing and data collection to substitute for classroom education, and for the school district to stop authorizing new charter schools even as it cuts back and closes public schools.
Sarah Jaffe puts the attacks on Chicago schools in context:
The 50 schools closed under Emanuel were mostly on the South and West Sides and mostly served students of color; when Emanuel's administration shuttered half the city's mental health clinics in 2012, four of the six closed were on the South Side. Meanwhile, Chambers says, the city's rich and the financial industry are doing better than ever, and so CTU has included demands for progressive taxation, including a financial transactions tax or a millionaire's tax. They're also calling for the city to renegotiate lousy deals on financial instruments like interest-rate swaps that have cost the city more than $1 billion.
When corporate education reformers and hedge fund privatizers go after teachers unions, it’s part of a broader war on public education and public services more generally. And it’s all too clear who’s getting rich and who’s getting screwed.
● Bernie Sanders won a major union endorsement this week, coming from the Communications Workers of America. It’s his third national union endorsement and the largest union to endorse him. According to the union’s president:
“Bernie Sanders stands with working families against corporate greed, against Wall Street and the big banks, against politics as usual. He stands against the flood of money in politics that’s corrupting our democracy and attacking the right to vote. He knows that we have to take on the rich and powerful special interests to turn around this economy and end the 40 years of stagnant wages that working families have endured.
“He’s the candidate who can do it, and we are going to help him. When CWA endorses a candidate it is just the beginning. Our 700,000 members are fired up, and we are going to work overtime to elect Bernie Sanders as the next President of the United States. ”
● Walmart is unhappy with Bloomberg’s story about the company spying on worker activists. In fact, Walmart says, OUR Walmart should never have shared the documents—obtained through discovery for a National Labor Relations Board case—with Bloomberg, and Walmart wants the documents back. But hey, we already know what they said.
● Was the shrimp you eat peeled by slaves? It could very well be. (Unless you don’t eat shrimp because you realize they’re gross.)
● Gig economy platforms like Uber and Lyft were dealt a loss by the passage of a Seattle law allowing their workers to unionize, and they face another legislative challenge in California—though of a different kind.
A solution about to be proposed in Sacramento, however, probably won't make unions happy, let alone business.
It's to bypass unions entirely and create a new organizing tool that allows groups of gig workers to collectively bargain with the company operating the app. It's titled the California 1099 Self-Organizing Act — 1099 being the annual tax form independent contractors are supposed to receive from the entity paying them, such as Uber.
In recent years, many unions have shown themselves open to and even supportive of labor activism outside of traditional union structures, so we’ll see how unhappy they are.
● US to increase worker protection from deadly silica dust for first time in more than 40 years.
● Beating apathy in workplace organizing:
So when you’re assessing why more people haven’t stepped up to take on the boss, it’s important to look at your situation carefully, and find out what the actual reasons are. You have to diagnose the problem before you can write the prescription. It’s not apathy—but what is it?
Education
● Florida gave about $70 million to charter schools that later closed; state recouped little.