I met An Arizona Teacher. She Was Happy.

Arizona Teachers and Supporters May 2018

An educator in a system of oppression is either a revolutionary or an oppressor. Lerone Bennett Jr.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Facts For Working People has consistently given the teachers/educators strikes and actions earlier in the year the importance they deserve.  We have stressed that these actions have shown how workers can win and begin build an offensive of our own against the assault and war on workers by big business.

We have aimed some criticism at the labor officialdom as well as its left wing, often members of self styled socialist organizations that occupy the lower rungs of the trade union bureaucracy and work as staffers. A staffers role under the present leadership,  is to ensure the concessionary policies of the labor hierarchy are implemented. It is understandable that the labor hierarchy would keep pretty quite about the teacher’s struggles as they were not conducted in a way that they or the employers approve. The trade union leadership at the highest levels sees the unions as employment agencies with them as the CEO’s. Members’ dues are revenue and they are ferocious in defending their turf just like any business owner to the detriment of members and working people as a whole.

The way the teacher’s strikes and activities were conducted was totally different. Violating state law, overriding the established leadership, including all workers with voting rights on issues, union or non-union, food service workers or groundskeeper, and they were successful.

To any class-conscious worker this is how it’s done and must be built on. But for the established conservative bureaucracy it’s terrifying as it undermines their entire concessionary strategy based on the view that we cannot win and that the employers are all powerful. Openly undermining it or coming out against it would not be productive and be unpopular but decades of historical examples have shown that they will not build on a strategy that intentionally or not, threatens the rule and legitimate rights of capital and undermines the relationship they have built with the bosses based on labor peace and cooperation. It will take a powerful movement before sections or individual members of the present of leadership break ranks along the lines of John L Lewis in the 1930’s split and formation of the CIO.

Read the union leadership’s picket line rules in a recent IUOE strike in Western Washington for as clear example as one can get on how tame and controlled disputes are under the present pro-management hierarchy. They are terrified of serious victories as they would inspire millions of workers as well as their own members.

While the educator’s movement might have died down a bit and may not arise in quite the same way in the immediate future, (I am sure many of them have illusions in the Democrats but these will be dashed in time), lessons will have been learned; struggle always teaches.

I am not in any of the states where the major educators struggles took place but I did attend a forum where some of them spoke and there are three links below of videos I shot. It is really inspiring and worth watching as there are lessons for us that will help us in the period ahead.

Instead of the strategy of the labor hierarchy that in response to the Janus vs Afscme Supreme Court defeat had staff and members frantically running around having members fill out cards pledging loyalty to the union, the teachers strikes and their methods should be given prominence by all union activists, bloggers and others that are serious about changing not only the union but our world. Read: Don’t Panic about Janus/Afscme. The Supreme Court is Not Ours.

I had the perfect confirmation of how successful the teachers/educators efforts were in increasing class consciousness, empowering workers in a real way and winning support for trade union organization when I went down to one of my local coffee shops today. A neighbor came in with his sister and her son who were visiting.

We chatted a bit and I asked where she was from and she told me she was from Arizona. Being who I am I said there was a lot of good activity down there earlier this year was there not. She wasn’t sure what I meant so I mentioned the huge rallies campaigns and actions that the teachers took and told her I met some of the teachers involved.

This satisfied smile came out of her and she said, “Well it got me a 10% raise”, she was very happy with that as an elementary school teacher. That’s how you win support for unions, you produce the goods, you improve the material conditions of your members and society as a whole.

It’s just the beginning, and there is a lot of improvement to be made as well. In many cases strategists atop organized labor refuse to link up their members’ struggles, wages, hours working conditions, with the conditions in our communities where, in these examples many teachers and parents students live.  This is crucial for poor people and black and brown communities and if you watch the video clip report from a Kentucky teacher, there was strong resistance to getting the union/movement to include opposition to a gang ordinance included in demands to the governor. This matters to parents as these gang ordinances are a road to stop and frisk and racial profiling. Jobs are a far better option, and parents are allies too and after all, it is morally just. Most of us are wage workers in the long run.

Here are the links to the videos:

Kentucky Teachers Stress the Need For Union and Community Links   

West Virginia Teacher Describes Events Leading up to the Strike   

Arizona Teacher Talks About Education and the Recent Strike.

More reading on strategies inside the trade unions