There is something very significant afoot. A revolt of teachers has gone viral in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona and other states that gave a majority of their votes to Donald Trump in the 2016 election. And it is holding strong. Even the Wall St. Journal, ever the corporate mouthpiece of hostility to unions, had to admit that “The tactics of the teachers’ unions and the rate they have succeeded…. is extraordinary.”
In an article entitled “Why Teachers’ Strikes are Becoming a Nationwide Movement,” this media mouthpiece of the super-rich laments the popularity of the teachers’ strikes. The Journal notes that a teacher Facebook group in Oklahoma acquired over 73,000 members in a very short time. It reports that the legislature there passed a previously “unthinkable” 5 percent tax on gas and oil production, overcoming the very difficult 75 percent vote requirement for any tax hike. Why? Elected officials were responding to teachers’ demands for funds to pay for education, the Journal says.
While Republicans are scrambling to quell the teacher uprising, the Democratic establishment is looking to divert the struggle into electoral channels. Have the Democrats forgotten that it was their down-the-nose preaching and phony promises that helped get Trump elected in the first place? Have they not noticed that teachers no longer believe false promises made by politicians claiming to be “on your side?”
What has happened? And what does it mean?
Teachers’ revolt continuing
On April 26, some 50,000 teachers in Arizona walked off their jobs demanding higher pay for both themselves and school support staff, as well as more funding for education. That same day, instead of going to work 15,000 educators in Colorado rallied in their state capital raising much the same demands.
This comes on the heels of the successful teachers’ strike in West Virginia and continuing struggles of teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky.
The situation of teachers everywhere is similar. According to a May 2 NPR poll, 59 percent of teachers have worked a second job, and eight out of 10 have bought school supplies with their own money. After years of constant tax cuts for the wealthy, cutbacks in funding for education–for teachers, support staff and in school supplies — the teachers, 75 percent of whom are women, have responded with massive rallies, chanting “We won’t take it anymore!” and “Education is our right!”
Solidarity with poor and working class students
Teachers in every state on strike are raising funds to help feed hungry and poor students who depend on school for breakfast and lunch. Without school, many students would go hungry so the teachers are striking for them, too, and raising demands that make students’ education and well-being primary in their struggle. The teachers, many hitting the pavement in states with large Latino populations, are showing solidarity with poor and working class students
Conditions are much worse for Puerto Rico, whose colonial status and racist neglect from the Trump administration has severely hindered recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Maria. The real government in Puerto Rico, the Financial Management and Oversight Board appointed by the federal government, has used the crisis to close hundreds of schools, fire thousands of teachers, and increase the privatization of public schools. On March 19, some 16,000 public school teachers walked out of the classrooms in a one-day strike and marched to San Juan to protest privatization and to demand investment in public education.
The walkouts have garnered popular support across the country. According to an April 26 NPR poll, just one in four people in the U.S. believe teachers in this country are paid fairly. Nearly two-thirds approve of national teachers’ unions, and three-quarters agree teachers have the right to strike. That last figure includes two-thirds of Republicans, three-quarters of independents and nearly nine in ten self-identified Democrats.
Buoyed by overwhelming popular support everywhere, the teachers have hung tough against false promises from politicians, threats of fines and imprisonment and hostile press coverage. They know they are fighting for every teacher, every student, every family in their state. Funding for education has been cut everywhere; teachers’ salaries have stagnated everywhere, along with salaries of maintenance and other support staff.
‘The devil is in the details,’ not in empty promises
For years local politicians were happy cutting funding to education, privatizing schools and transferring money to the already rich via tax cuts. Now they are making vague promises to the teachers, saying “I’m on your side.” But they have lost credibility. In the face of threats of firings and fines, teachers are continuing their walkouts until their demands met. They are holding the state legislatures accountable, charging “We can’t take it anymore!” as in Arizona and Colorado. Union leaders eager to believe whatever promises politicians make have been overridden by the ranks, as in West Virginia. Chants of “Whatever it takes!” have resonated from state to state.
In Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey repeatedly promised teachers a 20 percent pay raise. However, Joseph Thomas, President of the Arizona Education Association and Noah Karvelis, music teacher and Arizona Educators United organizer, sent out the following joint statement April 28, reported by ABC Arizona:
“We have a press release and a tweet from the governor. We have no bill. We have no deal. The devil is in the details. We know that we have been down this road before. He makes promises that he can’t keep. We just can’t trust him.” The teachers’ walkout is scheduled to continue Monday.
Powell Manifesto of 1971 ushered in reaction
Many trace the current reactionary period back to the Powell Manifesto of 1971. This was a rightwing response to the growing progressive movements of the time. The manifesto stated: “There should be no hesitation to attack…to press vigorously in all political arenas for the support of the free enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it.”
Written by corporate lawyer and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, Jr., the manifesto was a call to arms for a more aggressive war on working and oppressed people, with racism spearheading the attack. It promoted a massive and continuing propaganda campaign through such corporate think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, through media outlets like Fox News and CNN, through the universities and in other ways.
The first president to fully represent the manifesto’s perspective was Ronald Reagan, who took office in 1980 after a 20 year period of political instability in the United States. He stated that “government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.” Of course, this didn’t prevent him from doubling the war budget and cutting taxes for the rich, while slashing social programs for working and poor people. It also didn’t prevent him from firing the air traffic controllers en masse when they dared to strike, despite their support for Reagan during his election campaign. Bitterly, the fired controllers passed out a letter from Reagan promising that, since he was a “former union member” he understood their problems.
The capitalists thought they had it all figured out….
The Powell Manifesto ushered in almost 40 years of virulent racism and reaction, sexism, anti-LBGTQ bigotry, union-busting, and the general suppression of union rights.
On top of that, when the Soviet Union and other socialist countries collapsed in 1991, it demoralized nearly a generation of working class fighters who believed that there could be a real alternative to unfettered capitalism.
The capitalists, however, were ecstatic. They might have used their newfound confidence to limit profits, to raise salaries, to promote full employment, to combat racism, to come through on the “peace dividend” they promised workers at the end of the Cold War. But that isn’t what capitalism is about. They took advantage of the demoralization and confusion of the working class to take enriching themselves through the theft of workers’ wages and resources to new heights. Racism and reaction were rampant and the growing gap between rich people and everyone else seemed unstoppable.
The capitalists planned to continue taking and taking until they were stopped. They thought they had it all figured out. They even claimed after the demise of the Soviet Union that their reality was the “end of history.” But it was not the last chapter.
…. they were taken by surprise by the teachers’ revolt
After the election of racist demagogue Donald Trump, who would have predicted that such a powerful struggle would break out, and in the mostly white states that had voted for him?
Despite the most vigorous efforts of the corporate media to co-opt this movement into electoral channels, who would have thought that their false message of “let us do for you what we don’t want you to do for yourself” may be spent?
The fact is that, despite all the corporate media’s declaring so many states to be “Trump country,” they are actually working class country. The struggle has revealed this to be true, much to the alarm of the capitalists.
The powers that be are also concerned that, in the face of constant budget cuts, workers will see and take on the real “elephant in the living room, ” the massive war budget that is sucking the life out of state, county and federal budgets.
Is a realignment coming?
Can this teachers’ struggle be an indicator of a political realignment in the working class toward anti-racist class unity?
Can working class whites recognize commonality with, and show solidarity with Black and Brown communities that have borne the brunt of the racist, anti-worker offensive and have been struggling for so long? An effective orientation by the general progressive movement can facilitate this.
As Michelle Alexander explained in her ground-breaking book “The New Jim Crow,” the working class needs a “durable, interracial, bottom-up coalition that…figures out some way for poor and working class whites to feel as though they had a stake, some tangible interest… in what they might gain as a result of integration.”
The ruling circles are watching the teacher’s revolt very closely to figure out how to derail it. The progressive movement must watch it closely too—looking for ways to broaden, deepen and strengthen this struggle. A strong, independent, anti-racist working class movement would certainly be in every worker’s best interest.
