Ghosts of PATCO and the Coming Battle for Teachers

by Alan Morse

Common Dreams
June 18, 2012

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/18

	If it comes to a strike, the CTU will need help from
	teachers across the country, so the smart money says
	be ready. This will not be a time for a timid
	response. The CTU will need solid moral support,
	possibly including cash and sympathetic job actions 
	to draw attention to their cause.

I've been there.

Your ears ring so badly the sound of a spoon stirring coffee
hurts. You can't sleep past dawn, but you can't prop your lids
open through dusk. Your exhaustion runs so deep the next 75
days seem over before they start...filled as they'll be with
summer jobs to pay bills, workshops to stay certified,
planning for the fall---and dare I say it?---family.

You love your work, though it's the hardest thing you've ever
done and never gets easier...and you won't get rich on what
they pay you...yet those who've never done it are actually
jealous of you in June.

Teachers use these bittersweet first days of summer both to
get a life and find new energy to live it.

So it hardly seems time to add one more thing to teachers'
plates...

After giving up teaching more by circumstance than choice, I
served about a dozen of the past 18 years on my school board.
Since 1994, I've watched schools remodel themselves after
corporations, de-professionalize teaching, gut local control
by rendering boards nearly powerless and alienating parents,
and squeeze budgets past the breaking point while funneling
resources out of communities.

For the past quarter century we have been frogs slowly boiled
by corporate interests, and we have yet to jump out of the
water. Next fall may be our do-or-die moment.

This is the mess that gets slopped on your plate this summer:
It's an approaching showdown for parents, teachers, and all
who care about kids, not to mention policemen, firemen, and
other union workers: ignore it at your own peril because
you're next.

The first years of this decade saw the highest highs and the
lowest lows for unions. Public sector unions were gutted in
Wisconsin, inspiring union busters everywhere yet kindling the
largest, loudest united backlash in the memory of all but our
oldest. The attack was so outrageous it brought those slated
by Walker for "divide and conquer" together and brought him
nearly to his knees.

Nearly, but obscene piles of money plus one heartbreaking
Tuesday all but crushed that rebellion, puffing up dozens more
would-be Walkers across the country. Both sides know that was
a watershed.

Union-busting currents flow deep in most of our communities,
and I saw that clearly from the school board. As a board
member in Maine, I received mailings from the state school
boards/school management association barely containing its
glee supporting ALEC-inspired initiatives from a tea-party
governor. The superintendent himself, every time the door
closed, bashed away: belittling union activities and openly
plotting the union's demise, all with barely a peep of
opposition.

I yelled myself silly, but unions have precious little support
in our conservative towns, where even teachers' salaries look
good and every benefit seems stolen from citizens' pockets.
Any talk of parents and unions joining forces for better
schools meets polite silence.

Yet that is exactly what the good folks in Chicago---parents
and union activists---are trying to do right now, and if they
fail we will face a moment this fall which will combine the
worst of Walker's Wisconsin sleeze with Reagan's PATCO orgasm
while shredding teachers' unions for our generation.

A short crib-note on Chicago school politics might be in
order. Remember Arne Duncan? His twisted logic for "school
reform" was first tested in Chicago. Now he's running the
Department of Charter Education and Teacher Bashing in DC.
Barack Obama? FOA (Friend of Arne). His national agenda for
schools?---'nuf said. How about Rahm Emanuel? FOB, FOA...now
strangling Chicago schools with closures, arrogance, and
promises to sell kids to the highest corporate bidders.

The Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU)? Once a compliant bunch, but
recently taken over by the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators
(CORE) in a stunning victory for grassroots organizing.

Those are the actors. The plot thickened last week when the
CTU authorized a strike vote if contract negotiations break
down. The vote was not close: nearly 90% in favor and less
than 2% of membership opposed.

Chicago teachers threw down the gauntlet for nothing less than
a good-faith, fairly negotiated contract, but Emanuel's
minions were surely emboldened by Walker's victory. If it
comes to a strike, the CTU will need help from teachers across
the country, so the smart money says be ready. This will not
be a time for a timid response. The CTU will need solid moral
support, possibly including cash and sympathetic job actions
to draw attention to their cause.

Chicago is a front-line skirmish in Washington's drive to
dismantle public education across the country, and should be
considered no less. If we can't draw a line there, don't
bother to wait for the fight to come to your neighborhood.

Do your research this summer while you have breathing room.
Sleep on what this means to you while you have time to sleep.
Talk with your friends and colleagues around the country about
what this means to you...while you have time and energy to
talk.

Next fall, be refreshed and ready with your summer reading
done, your homework completed, and your mind made up to fill
the trenches in solidarity with your colleagues...and
ultimately for your own students and schools. Big money will
be throwing all they have at the CTU, and the negative effects
of their PR smears will find you wherever you live, so better
get a head start.

Nobody will lead you into battle in 75 days, but if you do
your work in July and August, nobody will have to.

[Alan Morse is a parent, once a teacher, and more recently a
school board director living in western Maine. He can be
joined or harangued at [log in to unmask]]

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