You should make this your facebook profile pic immediately.

The Chicago Teachers Union is on strike, and what happens there will affect teachers throughout the nation.  Hell, this strike could affect all unions for years to come. 

Rahm and CPS wanted this strike, and now they’re going to get it.

Rahm, the latte liberal asshole, and his team at CPS don’t seem to know their head from their ass when it comes to labor relations.  Shit is going to get real.  Stand strong, don’t back down, Solidarity forever!

the billionaires club

What Might Have Been: One Report from Madison, Wisconsin

http://coreyrobin.com/2012/06/20/what-might-have-been-one-report-from-madison-wisconsin/

In all the post-mortems about what went down in Wisconsin, this comment on my blog from a union activist in Madison got lost in the shuffle.  I have no idea who this person is or if s/he is correct in his/her assessment. But it seemed worth posting here in full.

… … .

I’m a member of the Teaching Assistants’ Association. I was heavily involved during the actual occupation of the Capitol, and then gradually less so after we were kicked out. I was at the meeting of the Wisconsin South-Central Federation of Labor when it voted to endorse a general strike if the bill went through. It should be noted that the final version of the bill involved endorsing an “international” general strike, whatever the hell that would be.

Although, to be fair, since the leadership knew they didn’t have a strike fund or any advance work with any unions, they were only endorsing a strike in principle, I still thought I was on the set of a movie. Since, you know, the last general strike in the United States was in Minneapolis in 1934. I talked to a still-wet-behind-the-ears paid organizer for SCFL, and he told me that, indeed, there was serious talk about a general strike.

When things actually hit the fan, of course, it was only the directly-affected public-sector unions that had any real strike talk. In my own, undoubtedly the most radical, there was a hard core of activists who had been working around the clock on the occupation who favored going on strike. I was willing to be one of them, but it became pretty clear that we had no chance in hell of winning a strike vote. The primary problem was not our ”fat-cat” union bureaucrats (our officers actually don’t draw a union salary) but the bulk of our membership. Even among the people who showed up to our large and contentious general membership meetings there were many who strongly opposed our “teachouts,” in which we didn’t teach our classes on campus but sometimes made alternative arrangements to teach near the State Capitol. I imagine that among the much larger number who didn’t come to the meetings and didn’t participate in the teachouts, such opposition was even greater. Certainly, those members would never have voted for a formal walkout.

Even some of our progressive faculty were getting antsy about the continued teachouts, and, of course, there was a considerable public backlash against the wildcat sickouts that many teachers participated in, most notably members of MTI, the Madison teachers union.

Without knowing all the decision-making details within the big public-sector unions, I am still confident that there is no way that a grassroots groundswell for a strike was squelched by union bureaucrats and Democratic politicians. They might have tried (and likely failed) to squelch such a surge had it existed, but it was clear to the vast majority of those involved that we had already done pretty much all we could do and that there was not going to be any strike, let alone the fabled general strike, the chimera of the left.

It might be interesting to imagine what would have happened had there been some organized campaign to stop doing any other activism and start preparing for a mass public-sector strike. For those who think the recall was an overreach, you shouldn’t try to imagine what the backlash would have been against that.

Update (6/21, 8:30 am)

One commenter reminds us that the last general strike in the United States was in Oakland in 1946, not Minneapolis in 1934.

I wasn’t always a union thug

By Dan Greenberg, Sylvania Education Association

When I started my career, teaching in a school across the street from a jail in Adelanto, California, I had the choice to pay $50 a month in union dues or not.  Either way I was going to receive the same pay and benefits.  So at 22 years old, right out of college, with several maxed-out credit cards, I couldn’t think of any way that I would be better off with 50 less dollars in my pocket. I declined to join.

Two years later, when I moved back to Ohio, I still wasn’t convinced that it was important to be a member of the teachers’ union.  I joined because everybody else did, even though I really didn’t see the point.

Now, a dozen years later, I am the VP of my local association.  I’m part of the negotiations team.   I represent my local association at regional and state OEA events.  I talk contractual rights with teachers most evenings and on weekends.  As I mow the lawn, I think about new ways to serve my colleagues through the association and how to engage them in union matters.

What the heck happened to me?

It wasn’t electroshock treatment or a near-death experience.  It wasn’t false allegations lodged against me that required union representation.

My involvement in my local has steadily increased over the past twelve years, and the more involved I have become, the more rewarding the experience has been.

Being active in my local association has been an empowering experience.   Through my involvement, I have been “in the know” about a great deal of the inner-workings of the school district.  I don’t mean that there is some spy ring of teachers, or that people sit around gossiping about district business.  I mean that there are critical policy decisions going on all the time in my district, and the union is intricately involved.  By being active and attending regular monthly union meetings, I find out all the things that are happening district-wide and how they could potentially affect me and my classroom.

My involvement is beneficial, not only because I am more aware of what’s happening in the district.  It’s beneficial because it’s made me more aware and knowledgeable about my collectively bargained contract.  So many teachers who are uninvolved with their local have no idea about their rights.  They grumble under their breath about being treated unfairly or about unjust situations in their building.  If these teachers were more involved in the local association, they would know all the avenues they have to help them satisfactorily resolve disputes with management.  Often, when I face a situation that I consider unjust, I can talk comfortably with an administrator and explain that a situation needs to be changed, by citing a section of the contract and explaining past practice.

I work with students everyday and work to develop my skills in delivering meaningful instruction.  My growth as an instructor is important, but my growth as a leader amongst my colleagues is also important to me. My union activity affords me many leadership opportunities. As a result, I feel confident speaking to my principal on a teacher’s behalf or representing and advocating for a teacher in a meeting. When I or my colleagues have concerns, I can bring them up at labor-management meetings, discussing important issues with the superintendent, treasurer and head of human resources.  I can work with management to make changes that are beneficial to teachers, students and the district as a whole.

For example, I worked with the superintendent and head of computer services to assemble a group of teachers to meet monthly to create a “responsible usage” policy for the district, regarding teachers using Facebook and other social media.  Another time, I voiced teacher concerns about our web filtering software, which wasn’t allowing teachers to access educational videos that they wanted to use during instruction.  I worked with administration to figure out how to work within the parameters of our software and allow teachers to use the websites they wanted.

In Sylvania, 100% of our teachers are dues-paying members, which is great, but  I also work to get teachers to do more than pay dues, to get involved and become leaders.  That means working with other local association leaders to plan association-sponsored social events like a district-wide breakfast before our August teacher in-service and encouraging people to get their feet wet, by being building reps or delegates to OEA conferences. These efforts continue to keep our local association strong, and new leaders emerge.  This year, three of our seven executive board members are new.

My perspective on the teacher’s union has changed drastically over the course of my fifteen years of teaching.  Through the years, I have learned all the benefits of membership and the opportunities that the union provides.  I’m thankful that I made the choice to get involved with my local, and I hope that others in the profession will get involved too, so they can take advantage of these same benefits and opportunities, in order to grow as educators.

In the episode “Last Exit To Springfield” Home becomes president of the International Brotherhood of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs, and Nuclear Technicians.  Great episode.

Carwash Workers Get Health Care

Watch how a United Steelworkers-community campaign is providing health care and changing lives. Says carwash worker Oscar, “Now, thank God my life has changed. If I get sick and feel bad, I have a clinic to go to. This is all because of the campaign.” Click image to watch video.

What happens if America loses its unions

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Harold Meyerson

Writes a weekly political and domestic affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.

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E.J. Dionne Jr.

Buying the White House

What would America look like without a union movement? That’s not a hard question to answer, because we’re almost at that point. The rate of private-sector unionization has fallen below 7 percent, from a post-World War II high of roughly 40 percent. Already, the economic effects of a union-free America are glaringly apparent: an economically stagnant or downwardly mobile middle class, a steady clawing-back of job-related health and retirement benefits and ever-rising economic inequality.

In the three decades after World War II the United States dominated the global economy, but that’s only one of the two reasons our country became the first to have a middle-class majority. The other is that this was the only time in our history when we had a high degree of unionization. From 1947 through 1972 — the peak years of unionization — productivity increased by 102 percent, and median household income also increased by 102 percent. Thereafter, as the rate of unionization relentlessly fell, a gap opened between the economic benefits flowing from a more productive economy and the incomes of ordinary Americans, so much so that in recent decades, all the gains in productivity — as economists Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon have shown — have gone to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans. When labor was at its numerical apogee in 1955, the wealthiest 10 percent claimed just 33 percent of the nation’s income. By 2007, with the labor movement greatly diminished, the wealthiest 10 percent claimed 50 percent of the nation’s income.

Today, wages account for the lowest share of both gross domestic product and corporate revenue since World War II ended — and that share continues to shrink. An International Monetary Fund study released in April shows that the portion of GDP going to wages and benefits has declined from 64 percent in 2001 to 58 percent this year. The survey compared the United States with Europe, where the only other nations in which labor’s share declined were Greece, Spain and Ireland — countries whose economies are at death’s door. Our economy is nowhere near so weak, but as Americans’ ability to collectively bargain has waned, so has their power to keep all corporate revenue from going to top executives and shareholders.

When unions are powerful, they boost the incomes of not only their members but also of nonunion workers in their sector or region. Princeton economist Henry Farber has shown that the wages of a nonunion worker in an industry that is 25 percent unionized are 7.5 percent higher because of that unionization. Today, however, few industries have so high a rate of unionization, and a consequence is that unions can no longer win the kinds of wages and benefits they used to.

Deunionization is just one reason Americans’ incomes have declined, of course; globalization has taken its toll as well. But the declining share of pretax income going to wages is chiefly the result of the weakening of unions, which is the main reason American managers now routinely seek to thwart their workers’ attempts to unionize through legally questionable but economically rewarding tactics (rewarding, that is, for the managers).

The weakening of unions has had a huge political effect as well: the realignment of the white working class. Since the ’60s, exit polls have shown that unionized blue-collar whites vote Democratic at a rate 20 to 30 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts. The decline in union membership has weakened Democrats in such heavily white, increasingly deunionized states as West Virginia and Wisconsin — the main reason Republicans such as Walker have sought to reduce labor’s numbers. Liberals who have been indifferent to unions’ decline will find it difficult to enact progressive legislation in their absence.

Understandably, some liberals are searching for ways to arrest the economic decline of the majority of their fellow Americans in a post-union environment. I fear they’re bound to be frustrated. If workers can’t bargain with their employers, it can’t be done. If and when Big Labor dies — it’s on life support now — America’s big middle class dies with it.

Benefits withdrawn to punish low-waged workers for striking

The “right to strike” in the UK comes under further attack today, as Iain Duncan Smith announces plans to withdraw Working Tax Credit for workers who take strike action.

The new Universal Credit model of benefit payments, part of a massive overhaul of the welfare state which is systematically attacking the living standards of the most vulnerable sections of the working class, includes plans to restrict payments to those who take industrial action.

Presently, workers who earn under £13,000 are able to claim Working Tax Credit (WTC) to top up their wages, workers can claim WTC against the first 10 days of strike action. As if the decision to take strike action wasn’t already difficult enough, Duncan Smith’s plans will further discourage workers from taking industrial action.

Duncan Smith has been quoted as saying that “the right to strike is a choice, and in future benefit claimants will have to pay the price for that choice, as under universal credit, we no longer will.”

Of course, this announcement could help fuel the backlash already in full swing against both benefit claimants and striking workers, compounding the negative stereotypes already presented over again in the mainstream media.

More info here and here.