[Update from Thursday, Feb. 22: 15,000 teachers walked out in all 55 counties across West Virginia, shutting down all public schools across the state. The action is expected to continue tomorrow, Feb. 23. Whether it will continue into next week is unknown.]
On Feb. 17, teachers and other educational service personnel gathered on the steps of the West Virginia capitol building in a powerful show of force in the face of continual disrespect by the right-wing dominated legislature. Upwards of 12,000 working-class people stood together in the rain to loudly proclaim that they refuse to stand by as right-wing attacks take place against teachers and other education service personnel’s economic wellbeing.
Their demands are for the state to fully fund the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) and for pay raises for all teachers across the state. Teachers complain of de facto salary cuts due to the increasing healthcare costs and out-of-pocket contributions, combined with the minuscule salary increases which fail to even adequately address inflation.
It was announced during the course of this rally that teachers from all 55 counties across the state would be engaging in walkouts on Feb. 22 and 23 in order to force the legislature’s hand into taking action. This signifies the beginning of what could be even larger actions, the scale of which have not occurred in the state since the 1990 teachers’ strike. That strike brought the state government to its knees in order to secure raises and led to the establishment of faculty senates in every school.
These events have immense significance to the working class struggling in West Virginia and nationwide and must be seen within the context of a broader era of neoliberal assaults on the rights of working people over four decades.
The state’s lawyers and politicians say the school strike is illegal and will be punished as such. The ruling class of West Virginia would like to teach a lesson to the working class — that it will punish any one who rises up. We must help teach the opposite lesson — that the working class has power, and when we utilize it, we can win.
Any law that tells workers that they have no right to withhold their labor and no right to do so collectively, is unjust and must be abolished.
Politicians like Governor Jim Justice say that funding PEIA just isn’t feasible at the present time. But he is a coal baron, among a small handful of ultra-rich owners who pay a pittance in taxes. Gov. Justice himself owes $4.4 million in state taxes.
These actions primarily show that unions, despite the right-wing’s nonstop attacks against them, still serve as the first line of defense for everyday working people to organize and take action to better their livelihoods and working conditions. Strikes in particular show the strategic power of the working class — to shut everything down — and are its most potent weapons against the entrenched power of the capitalist class and its state. In addition to the legal, financial, and logistical support that unions offer working people in their day-to-day work life, they also allow for people to throw a wrench in the capitalist machine when it refuses to grant their demands.
As individuals, workers can be intimidated into passivity by their bosses; it is difficult to defend one’s rights, or demand an improvement in conditions, if the threat of being replaced by another worker is always present. But when workers act together, suddenly there are no teachers to teach, no school bus drivers to transport kids, or janitors to clean up the school’s facilities.
Indeed the entire economy depends on parents being able to work throughout the day when their children are in school. The strike of school personnel therefore disrupts the whole economic system across the state.
This event therefore serves as a critical teaching moment for a new generation of labor activists across West Virginia and beyond seeking to revitalize the fight against the economic elites, and it’s critical that we all mobilize — and widen the struggle — so that it can succeed. The utilization of tactics such as walkouts, strikes, etc. must be intensified. Furthermore, their implementation is not limited to so-called “skilled labor” or “professional” sectors. Fast food workers, service employees, and other retail workers, which have become the dominant form of “unskilled” labor in West Virginia and other parts of the United States, also can be organized to engage in these actions. Taking part in these actions is not a privilege, but a fundamental right of labor.
Under the system of capitalism, the hard-fought gains of West Virginia’s workers have been rapidly destroyed by a ruling class intent on making super-profits. In stark contrast to this, socialism enshrines labor rights into the very fabric of its economic and political structure. It means the working class itself holds political power. The productive forces required to sustain life (such as schools, factories or farms) are collectively owned and operated for the social good.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation expresses nothing but full solidarity with the workers taking action to secure higher wages and better, more affordable healthcare. Our members are joining picket lines across the state and distributing information among other workers who may be misled by the corporate media’s attacks on the teachers. The National Education Association Vice President Becky Pringle stated during the course of the rally that teachers and service personnel will “do what it takes” to win better pay and working conditions. We agree. This is not just a struggle for higher wages and better healthcare, but a struggle for the very bedrock of our society, our children’s education!
Victory to the teachers! Tax the rich! Abolish all anti-worker “no-strike” laws!
