Strike for America (15 page)
Read Strike for America Online
Authors: Micah Uetricht
The CTU will have many opportunities to fail in the near future, and it will likely continue to lose some key battles. But the memory of CORE will continue to serve as an example of how the rank and file can push back against austerity and the union's own calcified leadership.
On the first day of the strike, after the entire city of Chicago had been blanketed by striking teachers, the teachers held a massive march in the city's downtownâthe first of several throughout the walkout. I arrived as the march got under way. Entering in the middle of the crowd, I spent about fifteen minutes wading through the crush of people trying to get to the front, but I never found it. I jumped up on a concrete planter to try to see the march's end, but couldn't see that either.
We still see a few strikes in twenty-first-century America, but there is a palpable sense of desperation clinging to most of them. Battles may be won, but the outcome of the larger war between the working class and capital has long seemed settled. Still, as Chicago's education workers finished their first day on strike with a mass rally, I looked around. Tens of thousands of teachers, clinicians, and paraprofessionals were decked out in red, holding homemade signs decrying the
Board of Education or the mayor; some held signs with one hand and pushed strollers or tugged small children along. Many had never been to a rally before, but here they were, on strike, radiating a mixture of defiance and exhilaration.
As the march began to end, teachers took their time leaving the streets. They clearly enjoyed their sense of ownership over the city, shutting down large swaths of downtown at rush hour while everyone from McDonald's employees to suit-and-tie office workers yelled or gestured in solidarity.
Standing in the middle of a city where striking teachers could be seen every few blocks, where average passers-by spontaneously shouted out their support, where a struggle against neoliberal reform was center stage for weeks and was overwhelmingly supported by the city's residents, it became clear that the war had not yet ended. Maybe the working class could actually win.
A naïve thought, perhaps. But just a few years earlier, many felt that a small group of dissidents were naïve in thinking that they could win control of their union; a few months earlier, many Chicagoans thought it impossible that the union could ever achieve a strike after the newly restrictive legislation leveled against them; many observers thought it unlikely that a free market agenda on education backed by both political parties could be rolled back. And it wasn't long ago that those who dared to argue that the global neoliberal project was not the “end of history” were seen as naïve.
The CTU serves as a reminder that historyâof education reform, of public sector unions, of the fight against austerity and the future of the working classâremains unwritten.
1
Alex Parker, “Jean-Claude Brizard: We âUnderestimated' Teachers Union,”
DNAInfo.com
, August 22, 2013.
2
Doug Henwood, “Strike Wave!”
Left Business Observer
, August 18, 2010.
3
Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, and Cal Winslow, eds.,
Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s
, Verso, 2010.
4
New York: Sarah Butrymowicz, “In Retirees, UFT Leadership Finds Loyalâand UnusualâSupport,”
GothamSchools.org
, March 12, 2013.
5
Kari Lydersen, “Rahm the Grinch? Janitors Say Emanuel Is Stealing Their Christmas,”
In These Times
, December 12, 2012: Melanie Trottman and Brody Mullins, “Union Is Top Spender for Democrats,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 1, 2012.
6
Newark: Josh Eidelson, “Some Newark Teachers, Inspired by Chicago, Seek to Thwart Concessionary Contract,”
In These Times
, October 26, 2012: Samantha Winslow, “Newark Teacher Reformers Win Majority,”
Labor Notes
, June 26, 2013. New York: Sarah Jaffe, “New York Didn't Pull a Chicago but Dissident Teachers Aren't Giving up,”
In These Times
, April 26, 2013. Nationwide: Mark Brenner, “Reformers Resurgent? A Survey of Recent Rank-and-File Uprisings,”
New Labor Forum
, Spring 2013.
7
Valerie Strauss, “Philadelphia to Close 23 Public Schools; Randi Weingarten Arrested at Protest,”
Washington Post
, March 7, 2013; Samantha Winslow, “Philadelphia Teachers Take School Closings Fight Citywide,”
Labor Notes
, February 14, 2013; “Excellent Schools for All Children: The Philadelphia Community Education Plan,” Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, December 2012. The case of the Philadelphia teachers union is especially indicative of the level of attacks teachers unions are currently facing. The demands the union is facing from the Philadelphia School District are stunning in their audacity. See Kristen Graham, “No Seniority? No Water Fountains? More on the Contract,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, February 27, 2013. Seattle: Jackie Micucci, “How Garfield High Defeated the MAP Test,”
Seattle
, August 2013.
8
This is a point Burns himself makes in
Reviving the Strike
.
9
Megan Erickson, “The Strike That Didn't Change New York,”
Jacobin
, Spring 2013.
10
Ibid.
11
Bob Sector and Rick Pearson, “Dim View on Emanuel Education Policy, Tribune Poll Finds,”
Chicago Tribune
, May 22, 2013.
12
See JOMO, “Caring On Stolen Time: A Nursing Home Diary,”
Dissent
, Winter 2013; Sarah Jaffe, “A Day Without Care,”
Jacobin
, Spring 2013.
13
Micah Uetricht, “Chicago Teachers Union Overwhelmingly Re-Elects Karen Lewis's CORE Caucus,”
The Nation
, May 20, 2013.
14
The failed attempts by New York City public transit workers to reform their union, Transit Workers Local 100, provide a strong case study, particularly for public sector workers. See Steve Downs,
Hell on Wheels: The Success and Failure of Reform in Transport Workers Union Local 100
, Against the Current, 2008.
15
Linda Lutton and Becky Vevea, “Truth Squad: Enrollment Down in CPS, but Not By Much,” WBEZ, December 10, 2012; Becky Vevea and Linda Lutton, “Fact Check: Chicago School Closings,” WBEZ, May 16, 2013.
16
“On Space Utilization and the Narrative of Right-Sizing the District,” Raise Your Hand for Illinois,
ilraiseyourhand.org
. The Illinois state maximum class size for children with mild disabilities is fifteen or fewer students without a paraprofessional, seventeen students with a paraprofessional. For students with severe disabilities, the limit is eight without a parapro, thirteen with a parapro. CPS calculations of underutilization treated all of these classrooms with disabled students as underutilized. See Rebecca Harris, “Class Sizes Could Increase for Special Education Students,”
Catalyst Chicago
, February 27, 2013.
17
Linda Lutton, “Â âZero Trust' After CPS Admits It Overstated Savings from Closing Schools,” WBEZ, May 6, 2013; Linda Lutton, “CPS Will Go Further Into Debt to Pay for Upgrades at Receiving Schools,” WBEZ, April 12, 2013.
18
Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Jeff Coen, and Alex Richards, “Chicago School Closings: A Closer Look at CPS Strategy,”
Chicago Tribune
, April 12, 2013; Lauren Fitzpatrick and Art Golba, “Despite Promise, Not All Schools on CPS Closing List Are Sending Kids to Schools with Better Scores,”
Chicago Sun-Times
, March 22, 2013.
19
Pauline Lipman,
The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City
, Routledge, 2011, p. 29.
20
Linda Lutton, “Parents at School Slated for Turnaround Chase Away CPS Inventory Team,” WBEZ, April 25, 2013.
21
Bob Secter and Rick Pearson, “Dim View on Emanuel Education Policy, Tribune Poll Finds,”
Chicago Tribune
, May 11, 2013.
22
Micah Uetricht, “New School Year Brings Anxiety for Chicago Parents,” Al Jazeera America, August 23, 2013.
23
Natasha Korecki, “Chicago Teachers Union on Rahm $5 million: âHe Needs Every Damn Dime,'Â ”
Chicago Sun-Times
, October 11, 2013.
