West.Virginia Teachers Defy State Law & Union To Stage Successful
Wildcat Strike, Are Oklahoma and Arizona Next?
with
Erica Newsome, English teacher, Chapmanville H.S.,
Logan County, W. Virginia
Teresa Danks, third-grade teacher, Grimes Elementary
School, Tulsa, Okla.
Derek Harris , middle school band teacher, Tucson Unified
District, Arizona
Rank and file teachers in West Virginia mobilized throughout
the state shutting down the schools in support of pay raises
for some of the poorest paid teachers in the U.S. They
converged on and occupied the state capital building to
demand a living wage and forced the state government to
improve their meager pay and freeze proposed Increases in
their health care premiums – and all the state workers gained
from the settlement forced by the courageous wildcat strikers.
While the teachers’ unions had tried through now familiar
lobbying and mobilization to fight for better wages and
benefits their methods proved unsuccessful, stirring the rank
and file to adopt a more militant approach. The workers
organized and struck on their own initiative rekindling the
state’s long and militant history of workers struggles.
Then within days of the West Virginia strike, certainly inspired
by their sisters and brothers teachers there, teachers in
Oklahoma which borders W. Virginia announced their
intention to walk off the job in order to win higher pay. And,
in Arizona teachers turned their campuses into a sea of red
last Wednesday, demanding better pay. Inside the Facebook
group that organized the #RedForEd campaign, a full-throttle
conversation of what to do next is underway.
Workers have been under brutal attack and unionization
has been in decline for over 40 years. The employer
offensive against unions has included all-out war against
militant action and especially strikes. Yet it has only been in
the periods of struggle and strikes for the private sector in
the 1930’s and late 40’s and the public sector in the 1960’s
that unions have grown and workers prospered. Now the
West Virginia workers are sparking workers across the
land to embrace their rekindled militancy.
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