By Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
GED HEO
Trump talked about "fake News" all the time. Now, being the degenerate slumlord and all round con-man that he is, he used the term opportunistically. But he is right that the news is biased. The mass media has a class bias. Four of five major companies and the parasites that invest in them control, the news media.
We have heard very little about the teachers and educators strike taking place in Scranton Pennsylvania. Scranton is the birthplace of Joe Biden, the man who most of the top officials of organized labor call, "Labor's man in the White House".
I thought I would check in to it after reading about it in a small column in the Wall Street Journal and found this report from PA News which is I believe an NBC affiliate. This report on the strike spends more time on the students than the teachers. The reason for this is it wants to garner our support; wants us to blame the teachers for their irresponsible action to withdraw their labor; wants us to feel sorry for the poor students missing out on their education. The same forces that are destroying the public school system and savaging workers’ living standards especially those who teach our children, are feigning concern about children affected by a work stoppage.
The interviewer talks to a teacher who explains in a very balanced and calm way why they are on strike. I have been on strike and it is not a decision workers make easily as it is extremely destructive and damaging to our families and financial lives.
The interviewer moves immediately from the teacher to the impact the strike has on the students and the effect this strike will have on their learning. This class traitor, then says that these questions, about the impact of the strike on students, "were not directly answered."
The entire report is an example of class bias and propaganda by the capitalist mass media. The Scranton teachers have not had a contract for several years. The Scranton school District has lost 113 teachers and paraprofessionals to other districts over the past two years and like nurses, another seriously abused group of "essential" workers, they are leaving this underpaid, and disrespected profession in droves.
The Superintendent of the school District, Melissa McTiernan even admits that the district agrees with the union regarding pay: "Teachers’ starting salaries aren’t where they should be”, she told the media. Then what she is in reality is an agent of big business, capitalism and corporate America who serves on a school board. If she agrees with the teachers, she should refuse to carry out the cuts and offer and alternative, but beyond that, she should use use her position to build a wider movement to bring about a victory for the teachers.
The district, which serves more than 9,000 students, says it doesn’t have the money to meet all the demands but this is old news. We have heard this from time immemorial. The defense (more appropriately offense) budget has plenty of money in it.
A statement by the school district claims: “Since negotiations began five years ago, the District has put forward several increasingly generous offers, including the one made tonight. In contrast, the SFT has not amended its original 2017 position in any meaningful way, choosing to increase its list of demands while refusing to cede ground on any issue.”
But workers in general and teachers in particular have already given enough. They already spend their own money on school supplies and work beyond the eight hour day without overtime pay.
As I have commented on earlier, we are seeing an uptick in workers struggles in the wake of the pandemic. The conditions are such that labor is tight and coupled with this, we have been told how we are heroes and “essential” workers. While it is good to take opportunity of market forces like supply and demand to fight for gains, we must reject the idea that we demand and fight for what we need depending on market conditions otherwise we accept concessions when economic times are bad (for capitalists and Wall Street).
There are strikes and protests throughout the country. Ten Thousand workers at John Deere have just rejected a contract for the second time. Workers at a Volvo plant rejected a contract three times and only voted for it by a narrow margin the forth time their employer friendly leadership brought it back to them (by 17 votes).
Two years ago we experienced one of the major labor revolts in 30 years when teachers and educators struck or protested their conditions in mostly right to work states making major gains. This movement shook the employers but also the labor hierarchy who are pro-market and wedded to the Team Concept which argues that employers and workers have the same economic interests, a philosophy most workers know is nonsense. If this were so we wouldn’t need unions. These battles from West Virginia to Arizona, were fought in opposition to the established trade union hierarchy.
The Scranton teachers belong to the American Federation of
Teachers, affiliated to the AFL-CIO, the national trade union body with 12
million members. With the Change To Win Coalition, there are 14 million of us in
the trade unions in the US. As the strike wave stirs around Scranton there is
no effort on the part of the AFT leadership (who have just undermined teachers struggles
in Puerto Rico, to unite all these battles in one united movement. The bosses'
are united. They have the courts, the police the media (just watch that video
above) and yet workers like the Scranton teacher and others, John Deere for
example, are left to fight against what amounts to global capitalism alone. We cannot win that way.
Lessons of Labor History
The reason the heads of organized labor refuse to bring the potential power of organized labor to the table is that in the last analysis they support the employers. They have the same world view as the boss. So when capitalism goes in to crisis, when people like the Scranton school Superintendant says there is no money they accept this and then move to bail them out, at their own members and all workers expense of course. This is the bigger picture and the root of our problem that we must change. It has its origins in labor history.
We wrote on this blog:
As the last century drew to a close, the Wall Street Journal produced a
centennial edition. This included a segment titled - "Events that
Helped Shape the Country". It explained that in 1893 there was an
economic slump that left half the membership of what was then the main
union federation, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), unemployed. The AFL
was composed overwhelmingly of craft unions (skilled trades). Samuel
Gompers was the leader of that federation. Under his leadership, and against
the background of that economic slump, the AFL made a decision as to what its
general policy should be towards U.S. capitalism.
Here is how the Wall Street Journal reported this decision. "The AFL
led by Samuel Gompers votes against adopting socialist reform
programs....Gompers believes that U.S. labor should work with capitalism, not
against it, and that the AFL’s proper concerns are wages and hours and
better working conditions".
Take note, this is the statement from the main public voice of US capitalism, of the employers, as it looked back over the previous century at what were the "events that helped shape the country". This is no small deal. This public voice of US capitalism saw that the decision of the trade union leaders over 100 years ago, "helped shape the country", that is, the United States we all live in today. The bosses, the employers, U.S. capitalism, speaking here through their most important public journal, recognize the importance of the decision taken by the trade union leaders of the time to "work with capitalism, not against it".
Quoted from: "Work With Capitalism, Not Against It". Why the Labor Leadership Surrenders to the Bosses
Lastly, here is a video that explains the situation in Scranton but I have not had the opportunity to watch it at the moment. I am hoping it does offer some useful information form the workers' side.
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