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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 2012)
Pro-labor insurer pledges to national labor college Teachable moment: CTU strike inspires unionists nationwide Chicago teachers deliver a blow to a corporate agenda for schools B Y DON M C INTOSH Associate Editor Any doubts that the seven-day Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike could have an impact thousands of miles away were dispelled Sept. 20 in the basement of the Portland teachers union office. There, about 100 union activists gathered the day after the strike ended — to celebrate, and to dis- cuss what it meant. The walkout by 26,000 teachers in the nation’s third largest school district wasn’t principally about pay, benefits, or perks. It was a strike for basics, like air conditioning in classrooms, getting more school nurses and counselors, and restoring art, music, physical edu- cation classes. And it was a strike against corporate-style education re- forms that subject students to heavy testing and blame teachers when stu- dents score poorly. “Education workers,” said American Federation of Teachers-Oregon Execu- tive Director Richard Schwarz, “have been the pincushion for sticking every new idea that some grandstanding busi- ness or political leader, talk show host, or newspaper editorial writer dreams up about what to do with children.” PAGE 4 [CTU is an affiliate of American Fed- eration of Teachers.] With the Chicago school board pro- posing that student test scores account for 45 percent of teacher evaluations, and demanding that teachers accept a longer school day with no commensu- rate increase in pay, Chicago teachers voted 98 percent to authorize a strike. The strike began Sept. 10, and drew support statements and solidarity fund donations from labor organizations around the country. “It was going to be a make-or-break moment for public sector unions and the labor movement in general,” said retired letter carrier Jamie Partridge, who helped organize the Sept. 20 soli- darity meeting in Portland. “A win for the teachers and the people of Chicago would push back the privatization agenda.” “We knew that we had to stand up to a big bully,” said CTU member Kirstin Roberts, referring to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Roberts, a member of the strike committee at her Northwest Chicago public preschool, joined the Portland forum via Skype. Emanuel — dubbed “Mayor 1%” by striking teachers — is associated with the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. Long before the one-time invest- ment banker became Obama’s chief of staff, Emanuel twisted arms to win Congressional passage of NAFTA, as President Bill Clinton’s political direc- tor. “We didn’t know if we could win against him,” said Roberts. “But teach- ers around Chicago were sure that if we didn’t stand up and fight, we were go- ing to lose everything. So we took that risk, and if you look at our contract, you can see things that we won, you can see things that we lost. We stood up, and we are stronger today than when this struggle started.” In the tentative agreement, subject to teacher approval in an Oct. 2 vote (after this issue went to press), the Chicago Board of Education backed off demands for a merit pay system, for major increases in worker contributions to health insurance, and for student test scores to make up 45 percent of how teachers are evaluated. Chicago teach- ers will still be subject to the state re- quirement that the test scores make up 30 percent of teacher evaluations, but that will be treated as a trial run in the first year, and teachers will have the right to appeal bad ratings to a neutral board. The Board also, in the agree- ment: • Agrees to hire 512 art, music, physical education and language teach- ers • Guarantees that students will have their textbooks when classes begin • Gives laid off teachers 10 months of “recall rights” for the first time, pro- vided they had good evaluations • Commits to fill at least half of all new openings with laid-off teachers • Provides annual raises of 3, 2, and 2 percent (Turn to Page 11) NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS Yes Man Yes Men co-founder Mike Bonanno (in front of a light at the end of a tunnel) closes a daylong conference of Young Emerging Labor Leaders Sept. 30. YELL is a constituency group of the Oregon AFL-CIO with a mission of increasing the part- icipation of young people in the labor movement. Bonanno is the alias of activist Igor Vamos when he works with the Yes Men — a group that uses publicity stunts and media hoaxes to expose corporate wrong- doing and undemocratic trade neg- otiations. The Yes Men are being sued by the U.S. Chamber of Com- merce for violating trademark law, for using the Chamber’s name and logo to draw reporters to a fake news conference at the National Press Club. That stunt and others are documented in two movies, The Yes Men (2003) and the The Yes Men Fix the World (2009). Bonanno — asked about the risks of his style of activism — said he’s only been arrested once. It’s much more risky, he said, to stand by and do nothing. Forty members from 15 unions attended YELL’s third annual conference, and elected a new chair, union stagehand Leah Okin of Inter- national Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees Local 28. WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — The pro-labor American Income Life Insurance Company is pledging $600,000 yearly to the financially troubled National Labor College. AIL President Roger Smith said the grant “will support the college’s education and outreach programs.” Smith called the funds “an important commitment for us in labor because we recognize higher education will be increasingly vital to workers in the 21st century.” The 43-year-old college is the only U.S. higher education accredited insti- tution specifically geared to serving educational needs of union members. But it has had financial trouble for years and its Silver Spring, Md., cam- pus is up for sale. $17 a month coverage includes: www.legalshield.com/info/randallnix OCTOBER 5, 2012
