[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Solidarity Event for the 26, 000 Striking Chicago Teachers!!!

[Carl G. Estabrook]

http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt/


On Sep 11, 2012, at 12:20 PM, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Puzzled by this, Wayne.
> 
> If workers in China lack effective labor protections, does that mean that American workers should follow their example and give up what remains of theirs?  I'd rather see the reverse - that Chinese workers should organize and exercise their power, to gain a more equitable return for their valuable labor.   As some of our own ancestors did in the US.  So we have weekends, and worker's compensation for work-related injuries.   And unlike Scrooge's employees, most of us get Christmas off, and some few of us still get paid for it.
> 
> It's not as though there's no money available (for Chicago teachers or for American workers in general).  Chicago is not an impoverished city - they just allocate money according to power.
> 
> If Chicago teachers have actually succeeded in getting CTU leadership that represents them, as opposed to getting along cozily with management as their previous leadership did, good for them.  Given the overwhelmingly positive strike vote, it sounds as though they are on the right foot.
> 
> It can be destructive to unions to focus narrowly on their own members' benefits - that's an invitation to division, and discredits the idea of unionization.  Once heard Chomsky point out a crucial difference between US and Canadian labor history: IIRC, after WWII, the US United Auto Workers agreed to include medical benefits as part of their members' contract, while the Canadian branch of the same UAW refused to do likewise - they recognized that every Canadian, in their union or out of it, should have medical care.   Now Canadians have better health care than Americans, far more equitably, and at far lower overall cost.
> 
> One interesting thing I heard that CTU has been doing, that I'd like to know more about: when making concessions, they have at least sometimes demanded to see that the money saved will be used for some social purpose - better support for school programs, community centers, etc. - not just for tax breaks for commercial development or etc.
> 
> Something else I'd like to know about the CTU situation: I'd heard (from a teacher we spoke with during the anti-NATO protests in May) that they've been forbidden from bargaining over class size.   How did that happen?   This could be an issue that would divide teachers from students: it's in students' interests to learn in smaller classes.   For teachers, smaller classes should be more effective and easier to teach, but they might also mean less pay.
>