Rebecca Burns at In These Times writes—What’s at Stake in Chicago Teachers’ Strike: Whether Unions Can Bargain for the Entire Working Class:
“Solving Chicago’s affordable housing crisis? What’s that got to do with a labor contract for educators?”
That’s the question the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board asked last week as the city’s teachers and school support staff inched closer to an October 17 strike date, with little progress made in negotiations for a new contract.
A standoff at the bargaining table over the Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) package of housing demands dominated the city’s news cycle last week. The union is asking Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to provide housing assistance for new teachers, hire staff members to help students and families in danger of losing housing, and take other steps to advocate for more affordable housing overall in the city.
In response, recently elected Mayor Lori Lightfoot accused the union of holding up contract negotiations, and the Sun-Times chided teachers to take a “reality check.”
It’s true that CPS has no legal obligation to bargain with the union over affordable housing policy. But it’s hardly unrelated—an estimated 17,000 students in the city are homeless, as CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates stated on Chicago Tonight.
Housing advocates agree. “The mayor's view reflects a very narrow understanding of the professional responsibilities of public school educators,” says Marnie Brady, assistant professor at Marymount Manhattan College and research committee co-chair of the national Homes For All campaign. “The living conditions of their students are indeed the working conditions of their classrooms.”
By raising an issue that affects not only teachers, but the communities they live and work in, CTU is deploying a strategy known as “bargaining for the common good.” That approach was key to the union’s victory in its landmark 2012 walkout, but a potential strike of 35,000 school and parks workers this week is shaping up to be an even more dramatic test.
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QUOTATION
“What we did in the 1960s and early 1970s was raise the consciousness of white America that this government has a responsibility to Indian people. That there are treaties; that textbooks in every school in America have a responsibility to tell the truth. An awareness reached across America that if Native American people had to resort to arms at Wounded Knee, there must really be something wrong. And Americans realized that native people are still here, that they have a moral standing, a legal standing. From that, our own people began to sense the pride.”
~~Dennis Banks (Anishinabe) 1996
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Race-Mixing? Oh! Think of the Children!!
Since the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 1967 in the case of Loving v. Virginia, it's been against the law to keep interracial couples from marrying the way Virginia did with its Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The ruling also knocked down the anti-miscegenation laws of 15 other states still on the books in the late '60s. But Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, didn't get the memo, or rather, he did but won't obey the law. He recently refused to marry an interracial couple, just as he has done on at least three previous occasions.
Bardwell, whose elected term of office runs until 2014, told the Associated Press: "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way. I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
As long, apparently, as they don't try to marry his sister. […]
The American Civil Liberties Union and local NAACP are looking into the matter. But how long before certain denizens of the national pundithuggery start braying that stopping Bardwell's outlawry would violate his principles? We can hear Glenn now: "Denying him his right to deny other people their rights is denying his rights!"
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Sure, there's lots of new stories to cover from over the weekend. Plus, Eric Posman's Maine Senate Snippet. But then who'd cover the 15 year-old story that could be at the heart of the Ukraine scandal? We’ve got it covered. Why? Because KITM.
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