By Richard Mellor in California
Matt Bevin, the governor of Kentucky, pictured above, made this video in response to teachers shutting down the schools the past week. Bevin is a manufacturer, an investor and a favourite of the Tea Party in the past. He is also an arrogant bastard. He has attacked pensions and Planned Parenthood. Bevin declared both 2016 and 2017 the ‘Year of the Bible’ in Kentucky. In this video he responds to recent school shutdowns by teachers and attacks them for “calling in sick when you’re not sick”. and thatchildren’s education is “Being disrupted by the handful of people putting their own interests ahead of the kids is just not acceptable,”
There were major protests last year in Kentucky and in the last few days schools have been shut down in Jefferson County, where the school district is the largest in the state. Despite an agreement between the school district and the Jefferson County Teacher’s Association for an organized protest, the Jefferson County schools were shut down yesterday as hundreds of teachers called in sick in order to protest at the state capital. They were not happy with the deal made between the union and the school district. This was the fourth ‘sickout’ by Jefferson County educators in the last two weeks.
Stoppages organised by rank and file group
The stoppages are being organized by JCPSLeads a group that has split from KY 120 which organized the protests last year. They organize through social media and their Facebook page. This is how the successful strikes and protests were organized last year. Brent McKim, president of Jefferson County Teachers Association (JCTA), said teachers organizing themselves has presented challenges for the union. What he really means is that it presents challenges for the union leadership.
The State Education Commissioner and the President of the Kentucky Education Association, (KEA) Stephanie Winkler opposed the shutting down of Jefferson County schools today and State-wide advocacy groups, including KEA and KY120 called on teachers to go to work according to the Lexington Herald Leader. However Facts For Working People has just been told that the teachers will be off again tomorrow.
Last year we shared some videos of teachers from West Virginia, Arizona and Kentucky sharing their experiences at a forum here in Oakland California. Here is the link to the Kentucky teachers who spoke that day. In the video, educator Tia Edison explains the difficulty in getting the issues that are of particular importance to the black community raised in conjunction with labour and workplace concerns, the importance of linking the two. She describes the reluctance of the union leadership to take up and oppose a gang ordinance at the same time as teacher’s issues and they refused to do so.
It’s clear that the teacher’s struggles have not died off.
Conditions in the schools and communities
Nema Brewer, who leads the teacher advocacy group KY120, has responded to the Jefferson County leaders and the shutdown, accusing them of ‘going it alone’ and not trusting in leadership as well as co-opting the established plan. But this division has next to nothing to do with personalities and is about recognizing the special situation that exists in the communities and that teachers have their backs against the wall after giving concession after concession with no end in sight. We have explained also on Facts For Working People that the reason the strikes have erupted in red (Republican) states, where strikes are illegal, is the relative weakness or non-existence of the labour hierarchy. The ability of the conservative labour officialdom to hold back the militancy and anger from below is weakened.
The trade union leadership nationally is completely out of touch with the crises that are engulfing people’s lives in housing, health care and education to name a few areas. The same is true when it comes to the dire circumstances that exist in communities of colour. Throughout the country, here in Oakland, in Chicago and other cities, it is schools that serve black and brown students that are closing, as the drive to privatize education continues.
It is clearly this reluctance to see the need to link up with communities and their issues as well as not taking teachers’ working conditions seriously that is forcing completely fresh layers to enter the struggle for a better life. This has no doubt contributed to the rank and file rebellion and the formation of the group JCPSLeads. But the movement from below will come under massive pressure and activists must not allow the state or the conservative union leadership to divide them.
New rank and file leadership emerging
Labour or workplace disputes are not separate from the wider issues in society and the problems facing our communities. We are all affected. The state slogan for Kentucky is An Injury to One Is an Injury to All. This is an old union slogan and working class people need to apply it to ourselves and not include unity with people savaging our living standards and our material well-being. If we want communities to join us in our battles on the job we must fight for the issues that are important to us where we live and work.
The officialdom could have brought all these struggles together and this can be done still by the new rank and file leadership that is emerging. They need to organize a conference with all the teachers fighting back. Puerto Rico has been in a state of practically civil war and followers of this blog should read the reports we get from Puerto Rico teachers’ leader Mercedes Martinez. Such a conference could initiate a serious debate on what is needed to build this national movement. Strategy and tactics can be debated and include representatives from many other groups from those fighting the poisoning of urban water supplies, to those fighting the poisoning of the land (the indigenous communities are in a catastrophic state), the Black Lives Matter Movement, the struggles against high rents, for affordable housing, transportation, health care and gentrification, etc.
We have stated on this blog many times that we are in a new era when the domination of US society by the two main capitalist parries is coming to an end. There is a lot to be optimistic about in the US and the increased strike wave and other struggles especially the teachers and educators movement is just the beginning. We are not far away form the next recession or slump that will have a huge affect on consciousness.
March 13, 2019
From the US socialist website (March 12), Facts for Working People, at:
https://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2019/
