In two meetings in the last week 1199 President Henry Nicholas has led the call and made the case for a general strike against the
School Reform Committee (SRC), which has just done all it could to break the Philly teachers union. President Nicholas made the motion and the primary argument for a general strike last week in a meeting of all Philly’s labor leadership, then again last Sunday in a meeting called to continue the debate.
Nicholas is president of Philly’s largest union.
The strike would have happened had the teachers not requested time to exhaust all legal remedies.
The SRC is an anti-democratic state appointed committee that replaced the locally elected school board by state fiat. Last week they unilaterally abrogated bargaining and recognition with the teachers union. It is an anti-democratic tactic being used now more and more by radical right-wing Republicans as part of a broader effort to replace American Democracy with an oligarchy or plutocracy.
The general strike is a very rarely used labor tactic for all workers to strike for a specific call and reason. The most successful general strike was in San Francisco when the longshoremen were joined on strike by all the other unions in town.
For Henry Nicholas, leader of the largest union in town and leader of healthcare unions, to call for it and make the case for it in Philly and almost win support is remarkable.
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