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The struggle in Kentucky over the future of public education continues today as
the legislators meet to vote on the governor’s appointees for the Kentucky
Board of Education. Teachers protests have already shut down schools for 6 days
through sick outs as there were not enough subs to replace them (See earlier
posts on Kentucky).
The state passed emergency legislation in January to prevent protests at the State Capitol. There has to be notice given. As an example of what a "Government for the people by the people." really means, which people they are talking about, the law doesn't apply to lobbyists. I write this, teachers are being harassed and
threatened by the state and over comments and stances of support they are taking on social
media. The state and leadership of the "official" union bodies are urging teachers to not sickout again and instead follow their plan of
sending JCTA delegates to the Capitol instead of shutting school down.
Reportedly they did not fully follow through with their plan as many schools
are understaffed and did not send delegates at all. There was also a
Jefferson County Teachers Association public statement yesterday urging
teachers not to stay away from school and attend today’s protests at the state
Capitol. The JCTA president Brent McKim was joined by leaders from
Afscme, SEIU and the Teamsters, a rare show of unity between labor officials
who are normally at each others throats competing for new members that they see
as revenue for the “union business.”. One thing they all have in common is the
fear of a conscious militant rank and file. The stance of the official trade
union leaders on this is nothing less than a criminal betrayal.
The war against public
education is taking place throughout the country and won’t stop in Kentucky.
Teachers/educators and their allies have opened up a new front in the struggle
to change our unions and also for a future for our children. As is always the
case, the savaging of public education will and does have a devastating affect
on communities of color.
In the forefront of this
struggle has been teachers, parents and allies in Jefferson County which
includes Louisville. As we pointed out in an earlier post, the group that
led the struggles last year, KY120 along with the Kentucky Education
Association made a deal with the state called for Jefferson County teachers not
to attend rallies in the State Capitol (Frankfort). Jefferson County folks
didn’t abide by that deal and incurred the wrath of the KEA and the KY120
group.
URGENT! Use the link in the
attached to email all Senators this morning before 10 am and ask them not to
confirm Bevin’s KBE appointments, including charter champion and board chair
Hal Heiner, JCPS critic and EdChoiceKY director Gary Houchens and Tennessee
charter school operator Ben Cundiff. They are anti-public school and stand to
benefit from their demise. They also forced out Stephen Pruitt the day after
they were appointed to bring in unqualified Wayne Lewis, who wrote his
dissertation on charters and made a blatant power grab to take over JCPS
immediately after he was hired. A private school grad himself, Lewis has only 5
years public school teaching experience, none of which was in Kentucky. He
certainly has no understanding of the issues we face in Jefferson County. Help
our senators understand that confirming these appointments could mean checkmate
for JCPS.
If you go to that website I
have linked above and click on the link Email ALL KY Senators in just
one click. Please go to that link and send them a message urging them not to
support the governor’s appointees. Even if they have already done so it is
important to do this to show that the Kentucky folks have support from outside
the state and if you are a reader from abroad let them know as well, it's important the state knows you are following their
struggle and support Kentucky teachers/parents and communities in their
defense of public education.
This is all for now maybe
I’ll try to get some further information out later. But please, this is not the
end of the battle here in the US against this offensive of capitalism by
letting these politicians know the Kentucky folks are being supported outside
of their own state will have an affect on the privatizers.
Last Saturday, I attended what was described as a Mass Solidarity Meeting to
support the Oakland teachers and their union, the Oakland Education Association
(OEA). The OEA might be going on strike in January and so might the Teachers in
Los Angeles. The mass solidarity meeting was called by the East Bay Chapter of
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
“This battle will be difficult”, said the notification for the meeting,
“But if we learned anything from Chicago, West Virginia, and Arizona, it is
that when teachers, students, parents, and community members stand
together in solidarity, we can breathe new life into a movement of working
people.”
In
the class struggle it is indeed crucial for unity between all workers, on the
job and in our communities. Unity about what and with whom is an equally
important aspect of this as the old saying goes, “Class consciousness is
knowing which side of the fence you are on. Class analysis is figuring out who
is there with you.” And at all times we must not underestimate the
importance of international working class solidarity. Recognizing that the
working class is the force that can change society is no small detail either
and unfortunately too many on the left and especially left academia do not
really grasp this and seek shortcuts that can only lead to defeat.
But what jumped out at me in this notification, was the attempt to link the
present contract disputes in California and the 2012 strike of teachers in
Chicago, with the strikes and protests earlier this year in West Virginia,
Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and elsewhere. The announcement talks
about what was ‘learned’ through those struggles which is positive but leaves
out the most important earth-shattering lessons of all. The 2018
strikes were rank-and-file led. They struck despite the leadership
not supporting them and they struck in states where striking is ‘illegal’.
After an Oakland Education Association official introduced the gathering and
never mentioned these crucial differences, some of us had the opportunity to
say a few words. As far as I can recall no one else took the opportunity
to point out the obvious so I had an opportunity to speak and pointed this out
although I did forget a few things that I will include here. My short
comments are in this video.
The
way the strikes and activity were organized earlier this year was the complete
opposite to how the leadership of organized labor has conducted such actions
for decades. If you have seen the videos of three of the women who played major
roles in these actions in Kentucky,
West
Virginia and Arizona
we see, very clearly described in the Arizona strike, that any worker in
education was included in the decision making, the actions and so on. Union,
non-union, Janitors, cooks, groundskeepers, even teachers from the dreaded
‘charter’ schools were included. This is unprecedented in union battles.
They union hierarchy pays lip-service to this sort of inclusion, but the
competition between various leaderships and squabbling and fights over
jurisdiction and for dues money, not to mention the egos of various leaders,
always holds this back.
The other crucial lesson that we stress on our Facts for Working People Blog
is that the reason this uprising took place in conservative Republican states
is that the union bureaucracy is weaker there or hardly present at all, so it
was not powerful enough to stop or crush the movement from below. The
Republicans, and to a lesser extent Democrats, have savaged education and
teachers’ rights, wages and conditions over the past period as the private
sector seeks to get its grubby little hands on education money. The conditions
they have to teach under are disgusting, along with their pay and on top of
that they end up spending a lot of their own money on supplies. The right-wing
state governments have pushed too far, have overplayed their hand.
The
trade union bureaucracy cannot ignore these strikes and so they point to them,
but they never make these crucial points – and for obvious reasons. They want
to push this genie of rank-and-file based actions back in to the bottle because
it undermines their policy of cooperation and concessions, under what they call
the ‘Team Concept’. Their position has been that ‘we cannot win’ and
claim they have to make a deal and rank and file power threatens this world
view. There are the perks and the obscene salaries that many of them receive
that contribute to the betrayals but these are secondary.
To broadcast and point to the tremendous victories earlier this year, and the
tactics that won them, West Virginia won a 5 per cent raise for all state
workers, is particularly dangerous in California. Some two million workers are
affiliated to the California State Labor Federation. The LA Labor Council has
800,000 or more workers affiliated to it. The non-AFL-CIO National Education
Association, NEA, the largest union in the US with three million or so members,
has around 300,000 members in California. The California Federation of Teachers
(CFT) that is affiliated to the AFL-CIO’s American Federation of Teachers,
represents another 120,000 “education workers”, including cooks,
groundskeepers, janitors and other education personnel. The labor hierarchy is
terrified of its own member becoming conscious of this power and acting on it.
I attended California Labor Federation bi-annual conventions in the 1990's and
every Democratic Party politician made sure they were represented. The
potential power of California's unionized work force must be kept in check.
California is the 6th largest economy in the world, it is crucial to Pacific
Rim trade and from Canada to Mexico the docks are unionized. None of the top
labor officials want to disturb that hornets nest. They are well aware of the
affect rising militancy and especially victories will have on the millions of
workers outside organized labor.
On the other hand, the bureaucracy is is also much larger than in the Red States,
more influential among the ranks and in a stronger position to to try and stop
it. But even this force would be brushed aside in the wake of a
significant movement from below. At this point it does not appear there,
although my knowledge of the level of rank and file activity in the education
unions is limited. In these times we cannot say it won’t. And that points
to another thing – no-one predicted the earlier events: not me, not the left,
not the liberal academics and all the other smarty-pants that add intellectual
legitimacy to the trade union leaderships concessionary policies.
I am
a DSA member but not very active for health reasons but it is refreshing to see
the energy and dedication of some of the young people that have flocked in to
DSA and taken its membership up to 50,000 or more. This is a significant force
and has the potential to have a major affect in society and within organized
labor. The teachers’ meeting we attended had about 150 people at it.
Individuals on the left have joined DSA and were very present. I looked at the
agenda and the only scheduled speaker I saw was the Oakland Education
Association official. I was told a state NEA full-timer was also present no
doubt to ensure things stayed within the confines of standard fare. But
after the woman from the OEA leadership spoke – an uninspiring effort indeed –
and before they were going to break out in to ‘groups’ in order to plan
solidarity actions, the announcer said that people who were bringing solidarity
greetings could come up and say a few words.
If you watch the video you can see my contribution to the issue was short and I
offered solidarity from my former union and I would do what I could to take the
issue in to it and that the Facts
For Working People blog of which I was a part was in solidarity with
the teachers.
I did say that it would be remiss of me if I did not point to the important
omissions as I can say with absolute confidence that any serious effort to
drive back the capitalist offensive and transform our unions in to the fighting
organizations they should be, will be bring us in to conflict with the present
leadership whose interests lie in the status quo. They are trapped by their own
consciousness, as I say in the video, they have the same world view as the
boss.
I stressed that for 40 years I have been told we cannot do what they did, not
just by the bosses, but by union staffers, officials, academics and
experts. I forgot to add that in these situations we are not simply
cheerleaders which is what some of the left actually are and what they appeared
to be in their contributions before me. Some young people came up and thanked
me. One said we need to listen to those that have struggled before us and learn
from them, which is good. I have to say that in my experience, normally crowds
like this that have a significant petit bourgeois presence can be an arrogant
bunch that think they know more than they do. There were very few black folks
there, more Latinos and a high percentage of young women. I left before
the breakout in to groups.
Overall, I think the mood was exciting and it was good to see so many young
people wanting to help unionized workers win in their struggles for a better
life for them and all of us. But again, we must not fall in to the trap of
simply being cheerleaders.
Last weekend I spoke in San Francisco on a panel that addressed the topic: "Public Education, Privatization and The NEA/CTA, SEIU and AFT/CFT-What
Can Education Workers, Students & Parents Do To Defend Public
Education?" My presentation was recorded by the Labor Video Project and it's now up on YouTube:
